Christmas Decorating With Vintage Toys & Free Tag Printables

Often when brainstorming craft ideas for publication, blog posts, workshops, etc. I will play with concepts that may never really make it to a final landing spot for final use. But the ideas are still fun and I end up with a few extra concept photos or Photoshop-manipulated images that I hate to just leave tucked away in a file somewhere. So today I dug out a few holiday related ideas utilizing vintage toys, game pieces, etc. for visual inspiration, beginning with this old red felt trimmed schoolhouse slate, perfect for counting down the days to Christmas.

I have a collection of vintage Anagram game tiles with all the letters of the alphabet. I blogged about them previously and you can even snag an image of the entire alphabet to use in your own projects- print or digital. I recreated a project I’d done previously in my own home to personalize the stocking of my youngest daughter, Sarah, who we adopted at age 5. My other kids had personalized stockings I could no longer find in stores so I crafted a simular store-bought one by gluing small wooding discs to a colored shoelace with the letters of her name painted on them. Here is a similar idea adhering Anagram tiles to heavy baker’s twine tied to the beautiful handmade linen stocking (shown digitally manipulated here -with permission-) from Etsy seller Kindred Spirit Home.

Again, using baker’s twine, vintage game pieces can be tied up into a cute Christmas tree garland or other whimsical decorative swag.

Tiny toy teacups, especially ones in fairly poor condition, can be found quite inexpensively at antique shops and online and are so cute for holding craft store bottle brush trees for place settings or other tiny Christmas decor. Globs of poster putty are the perfect non-permanent adhesive for keeping the trees in place.While on the subject of vintage toys, I have a 1939 hardware catalog with a fun spread of toy illustrations…

..that make for sweet Christmas toy gift tags! Click on the image below for a free PDF download to print, trim, hole punch and thread with twine, ribbon or string for adding to your holiday gifts.