Vintage desserts cookbook pages and illustrations make wonderful home decor. They’re also perfect for journals and numerous DIY projects.
Vintage recipe pages and illustrations have a whimsical charm that simply doesn’t exist in modern cookbooks. Old book pages are ideal for unique wall art. They’re also perfect for an extensive array of craft projects, such as home decor, greeting cards, art/junk journals, scrapbooks, Christmas ornaments, and decoupage.
It’s not a secret that I love the aesthetic of vintage book pages, including dictionaries and hymn books. I’ve also released a selection of other antique books here, including an algebra textbook, French primer, and agricultural almanac. I released my first cookbook pages a few months back with my Christmas cookie recipe pages post. I’m so excited to bring you another collection of recipe pages today, this time with full-color illustrations.
The vintage desserts cookbook I’m featuring in this post is Cakes and Pastries by Cleve Carney, copyright 1925. It was published by the Calumet Baking Powder Company. As such, every recipe features Calumet Baking Powder. It features a large selection of dessert recipes, including French pastries, cakes, cookies, and icings as well a dozen pages with color illustrations.
I’ve created free printables for 12 full vintage dessert recipes pages and all 12 full-color illustrations pages as well as a blank lined page for your own recipes. I’m also offering sets of ATC size cards and journal tags that I created with the recipes pages. Enjoy!
How to use vintage book pages and illustrations
When you’re searching for antique book pages and illustrations, most of the time, you already have ideas for how you’ll use them. If you’re looking for more inspiration or would like some other ideas for your new vintage printables, think about one or more of the following projects.
- DIY wall decor. One of the most common ways to use old book pages to make one-of-a-kind wall art. Antique recipe pages and illustrations make whimsical decor on their own for living rooms, kitchens, offices, and more. You can also overlay virtually any PNG or transparent background image onto a vintage book page and/or overlay it with text to create unique wall art.
- Christmas ornaments. Antique book pages and illustrations are ideal for all kinds of Christmas ornament craft projects for your own tree, to sell online and/or at craft fairs, and to give as gifts to friends, family, and teachers.
- Greeting cards. Vintage recipes make beautiful backgrounds for a wide variety of greeting cards.
- Glass or bottle cap magnets, using the technique that I share in my sheet music glass magnets tutorial.
- Pendant necklaces. You can also use the above technique to create necklaces instead of magnets.
- Tile coasters, using the method that I developed for my vintage sheet music botanical coasters. You can use the recipe pages or illustrations as is and can also overlay them with quotes, phrases, and other text.
- Art journals and other mixed media projects. Vintage book pages are extremely popular for art/junk journals and mixed media art. Use them as is or layer them with paint, ink, stamps, and more.
- Scrapbooking. I love old book pages for both physical and digital scrapbook backgrounds and details. They’re also great for DIY scrapbook embellishments.
About the free vintage desserts cookbook pages and illustrations
Cakes and Pastries by Cleve Carney is in the public domain, which means that you can use the full book pages and illustrations for personal and commercial use without attribution. Please don’t sell the pages as is either as individual items or as part of larger collections. You may use the ATC cards and journal tags for personal projects and limited runs of commercial projects (5,000 items or less). Commercial use DOES NOT include made to order sites, such as Zazzle and Society6. Commercial digital items must be flat, finished products (i.e., not Photoshop files) consisting of your original content, not you just selling my items as is.
Additionally, please don’t distribute the download files to friends, family, or co-workers. If people you know would like their own recipe pages, illustrations, ATC cards, and/or journal tags, please send them a link to this post where they can download their own files. Thank you!
Cookbook pages
I’m offering 12 full-size cookbook pages. All of the pages are 3200 x 5000 pixels. They feature a wide variety of recipes, including French pastries, cakes, cookies, and icings. I’ve taken pages from throughout the book to give you the widest selection of recipes. Some pages feature section titles (i.e., French pastries, cookies) while other pages are just recipes, so you have a variety of formats.
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Pages Set 1]
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Pages Set 2]
Cookbook illustrations
I’m offering all 12 full-color illustration pages. All of the pages are 3200 x 5000 pixels. Similarly, the illustration pages feature recipes from throughout the entire book, so you get a nice selection of French pastries, fruit tarts, puff pastries, torte cakes, and more.
[Vintage Desserts Illustration Pages Set 1]
[Vintage Desserts Illustration Pages Set 2]
Blank/additional recipes page
The last few pages of Cakes and Pastries are additional recipes pages with blank lines for the cookbook owner to fill in his/her own recipes. I’m making one of these pages available for download. It is perfect for art/junk journal layering and is ideal for creating recipe books, handwritten recipes, etc. for yourself or to give as gifts.
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Additional Recipes Page]
Intro pages
There are four introduction pages in Cakes and Pastries, which I’m including in this post. The first one is a foreword from the author Clive Carney. The remaining three pages have a general baking hints section and then more detailed tips about flour, French pastries, and torte cakes.
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Intro Pages]
ATC-size digital collage sheets
The ATC ZIP folder has two 8.5″ x 11″ pages with 12 ATC-size images from the vintage desserts recipe pages collection. Ideal for artist trading cards and endless craft projects!
Please note: The above preview image has black outlines around the 8.5″ x 11″ pages because it gets confusing having so much white space. The digital collage sheet downloads don’t have black borders.
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Pages – ATC Digital Collage Sheets]
Journal tags
I’ve created 12 journal tags from the vintage desserts recipe pages collection. In addition to art/junk journals and scrapbooks, they’re perfect for a wide range of DIY projects. Each tag measures 2.5″ x 4.2″ (750 x 1250 pixels). The journal tags ZIP folder contains two 8.5″ x 11″ pages for simple printing.
Please note: Again, the above preview image has black outlines around the pages. The 8.5″ x 11″ page downloads don’t have black borders.
[Vintage Desserts Cookbook Pages Journal Tags 8.5″ x 11″ Pages]
Extracting and downloading the full ZIP folders
I’ve created ZIP folders for all of the vintage desserts book pages and illustrations as well as the ATC cards and journal tags. Zipped folders enable me to provide high-resolution files and to protect said files from potential theft. Extracting and downloading the ZIP folders from Google Drive is a fairly straightforward process. Please note that it does take a little time to download each folder in full, particularly the book page and illustration sets.
- When you click on the download link, select the Open with ZIP Extractor option at the top of the page.
- The folder will open in a new window. The files will download.
- Once the files have downloaded, click Extract Now.
- When the files have extracted and uploaded, click View Extracted Files.
- Double click on the folder.
- To download, select the files you’d like to download. Click the three horizontal dots More Actions button. Choose Download.
- Follow the prompts on the download screen.
I suggest moving your downloaded files out of your downloads folder and into your main photos folder. I also suggest making a second copy on an external hard drive or cloud storage drive. Keep your files in a folder labeled “Vintage Desserts Cookbook Pages and Illustrations” or something similar, so you’re able to find them again easily.
Now you’re ready to use your new antique cookbook pages for kitchen wall art and numerous DIY projects!
Printing antique cookbook pages and illustrations
When you use vintage book pages to create wall art and other home decor, my personal recommendation for at-home printing is Finestra Art Paper. I love Finestra because the paper has an acid-free, matte surface, which dries ink quickly to produce crisp, vivid images. I prefer the results that Finestra offers for wall art over regular printer paper, card stock, and presentation paper.
For all other journal and DIY projects, I use white card stock. When you’re including book page elements in greeting cards, scrapbook embellishments, and mixed media art, it’s not important that the images are quite so vibrant. For projects that involve multiple coats of diamond glaze or Mod Podge, such as tile coasters, pendant necklaces, and magnets, you won’t be able to tell any difference in the finish of the paper. So it makes sense to use card stock, which is cheaper and still very durable and high-quality.
[Disclaimer: There are a few affiliate links in this post. Thanks for your support!]
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More free vintage book page printables:
Head to the free printables section of the blog for even more vintage book page printables as well as lots of other vintage printables, including a wide selection of sheet music and postcards.
