Vintage color illustration Christmas carols make beautiful wall art for the holiday season. They can also be used for Christmas cards, caroling books, and numerous holiday DIY projects.
From about the 1940s through the 1960s, many businesses, such as insurance companies and legal firms, gave away Christmas carol booklets to their customers during the holiday season. Quite a few of these booklets feature nice illustrations to accompany the carols. The booklet I’m sharing today has by far and away some of the most beautiful illustrations, title fonts, and borders I’ve ever seen in this type of booklet. The illustrations are all detailed and themed around each carol.
Many of you may recognize the carols and accompanying illustrations in this collection of vintage color illustration Christmas carols. They are very similar to this extremely popular set of carols that has been making the rounds on Pinterest frequently for the better part of a decade. (Scroll down about halfway on the page to see the carols.) I am absolutely dying to find an original version of those carols in the green and will surely share them if I ever do. It took me a long time to find this color version, and I love it, too. The color adds such nice detail to the illustrations.
The vintage color illustration Christmas carols collection features 14 popular Christmas carols, each with a lovely title, border, and illustration. The booklet also features two pages of additional carols without illustrations and a page with The Night Before Christmas. Additionally, I’m including the front and back covers, which have more beautiful full-color illustrations. Enjoy!
How to use free printable vintage Christmas music
When you’re searching for printable vintage sheet music, generally, you already have a plan for how you want to use it. If you’re looking for inspiration or simply want a few more ideas for your new Christmas carols, think about one or more of the following projects.
- DIY wall decor. One of the most popular ways to use antique Christmas carols is to create your own wall art. With such beautiful color illustrations, the sheet music in this collection is ready to frame for festive holiday home decor.
- Greeting cards. Many people (myself included) love to use vintage carols to make their own Christmas cards to send to loved ones.
- Choir and caroling books. Vintage Christmas carols add a nice touch to caroling books at the holiday season.
- Christmas ornaments. I love using shrunk-down Christmas carols to make little vintage music ornaments. There are so many other possibilities for using sheet music to make holiday ornaments as well. Ornaments are an ideal small gift for friends, family, and teachers and are perfect for selling online and/or at craft fairs.
- Pendant necklaces, using the technique that I honed for my sheet music pendant necklaces tutorial.
- Glass or bottle cap magnets, using the above tutorial but swapping in magnets for pendant bails.
- Tile coasters. You can use any vintage papers for my vintage sheet music botanical coasters to customize the aesthetic for different holidays and occasions.
- Art journals and other mixed media projects. Old sheet music is a popular material for art/junk journals and other kinds of mixed media art. It is beautiful on its own or layered with stamps, ink, paint, and more.
- Scrapbooking. Antique sheet music creates lovely backgrounds and can be used for numerous decorative elements in both physical and digital scrapbooks. It’s also ideal for DIY scrapbook embellishments.
About the free printable vintage color illustration Christmas carols
The vintage Christmas carols and additional booklet pages are 3500 x 5300 pixels. They’re 300 dpi to ensure the highest print quality possible.
You may use the vintage sheet music and other pages in this collection for as many personal projects as you’d like, which includes classroom use. You may also use them for limited runs of commercial projects (5,000 items or less). Commercial use DOES NOT include made-to-order sites, such as RedBubble and Society6. Commercial items must be flat, finished products (i.e., not Photoshop files) consisting of your own original content. You’re not authorized to sell the sheet music and additional book pages as individual items or as part of larger collections.
Finally, please don’t distribute the download files. If friends, family, or co-workers would like their own sheet music, please send them a link to this post, where they can download their own files. Thank you!
Free printable vintage color illustration Christmas carols
- Away in a Manger (JPG | PDF)
- Deck the Hall (JPG | PDF)
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (JPG | PDF)
- Good King Wenceslaus (JPG | PDF)
- Hark the Herald Angels Sing (JPG | PDF)
- I Saw Three Ships (JPG | PDF)
- It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (JPG | PDF)
- Jingle Bells (JPG | PDF)
- O Come All Ye Faithful (JPG | PDF)
- O Holy Night (JPG | PDF)
- O Little Town of Bethlehem (JPG | PDF)
- Silent Night (JPG | PDF)
- The First Noel (JPG | PDF)
- We Three Kings of Orient Are (JPG | PDF)
Download the complete set of vintage Christmas carols in JPG or PDF form!
I’ve broken the full set of carols into multiple folders for easier downloading.
JPG
[#1 Vintage Color Illustration Christmas Carols – JPG Versions]
[#2 Vintage Color Illustration Christmas Carols – JPG Versions]
[#1 Vintage Color Illustration Christmas Carols – PDF Versions]
[#2 Vintage Color Illustration Christmas Carols – PDF Versions]
I explain how to extract and download the ZIP folders in Google Drive in my vintage dictionary pages post. The link takes you to the exact directions that you need.
Additional booklet pages
I’ve bundled the front and back covers, additional carol pages, inside front cover, and The Night Before Christmas page into a single ZIP folder.
[Vintage Color Illustration Christmas Carols – Additional Pages]
I explain how to extract and download the ZIP folder in Google Drive in my vintage dictionary pages post. The link takes you to the exact directions that you need.
What to make with free printable Christmas music:
- DIY Vintage Christmas Music Ornaments
- DIY Large Simple Sheet Music Ornaments
- Just a Note Sheet Music Greeting Cards
- DIY Sheet Music Clothespin Magnets
- DIY Sheet Music Glass Magnets
- Handmade Vintage Sheet Music Botanical Tile Coasters
- DIY Sheet Music Pendant Necklaces
- 12 Easy DIY Music Teacher Thank You Cards
Printing vintage Christmas carols
When you use vintage sheet music and other antique printable pages to make your own wall art and other home decor, I recommend Finestra Art Paper for at-home printing. I always use Finestra for my own projects because the paper has an acid-free, matte surface that dries ink quickly, producing crisp, vivid images. I like the results that Finestra offers over regular printer paper, card stock, and presentation paper.
Finestra does not sponsor or compensate me in any way to promote their products. After years of making art for blog posts and for my own home’s decor, it’s the product that I love and select over and over again.
For all other craft and journaling projects, I recommend white card stock. When you’re using old sheet music for Christmas cards, scrapbook embellishments, and mixed media art, it’s not as important that the images are really vibrant. When you’re making projects that involve several coats of diamond glaze or Mod Podge, such as tile coasters, glass magnets, and pendant necklaces, you won’t be able to tell any difference in the finish of the paper you’ve used. As such, it makes sense to use card stock, which is less expensive and still very durable and high-quality.
[Disclaimer: There are a few affiliate links in this post. Thanks for your support!]
I want to see how you’re using the vintage color illustration Christmas carols!
Show me your wall art, choir books, and DIY projects! Tag your images #RoseClearfield on Instagram or Twitter, or post a photo to my Facebook page.
Pin this post for easy access to the vintage color illustration Christmas carols later!
More free printable vintage Christmas music:
Additional free printable vintage music collections:
Visit the free printables section of the blog for even more vintage sheet music, as well as other vintage printables, including postcards and book pages. Visit my VintageDigitalRose shop for even more antique digital paper offerings.
Hello, I don’t know if it is purposeful or not but you have not included the back cover into the single ZIP folder. Either way thank you so very much for publishing this beautiful vintage christmas carols!
Kindest regards
Thanks so much for letting me know! I’ve updated the additional pages folder, and it now includes the back cover. Enjoy!!
Thank you for sharing 🙂
You’re very welcome!
Thank you so much for making these song sheets available. They are so beautiful. I picked my two favorite songs. My grandmother always sang Silent Night to me, even when it wasn’t Christmas.
You’re very welcome! I love that!