80s arcade games took over America one quarter at a time. See the vintage ads & photos that capture that golden era of Pac-Man, Space Invaders & more.
Vintage crafts & hobbies
Old-fashioned Granny squares are easy to do and multiply so fast, you can turn out an afghan fast. And since you crochet a square at a time, you can carry them anywhere.
Explore the history of vintage beaded curtains — from early room dividers to their 1960s surge — and see why this flexible decor trend never fully went away.
The basic concept hasn’t changed much in 100 years, but vintage Erector Sets like these are still popular, still inspiring creativity, and still being used to build everything from mini roller coasters to motorized robots.
For Valentine’s Day or any day, you can re-create these pretty heart cross-stitch patterns with these designs and directions from 1955.
Do you remember Shrinky Dinks? They were DIY crafts that could be made by coloring on a plastic sheet, cutting out the various shapes, and then shrinking them down using heat.
This vintage printable calendar clipart from 1964 includes month-by-month retro icons you can use in planners, crafts, or to decorate your own calendar.
A shrimp Christmas tree appetizer is a scene-stealer and a real buffet beauty, certain to cast a special charm over any holiday party – yet so easy to do! Here’s how.
See how Christmas ribbon craft projects from 1963 brought color and cheer to holiday homes with DIY decorations, all made from simple materials.
Tissue paper, scissors, tape — see how creative gift wrap turns basic supplies into bold designs with these classic tissue pouf ideas.
Here are some crafty fabric Christmas ornaments you can make yourself. There are five different designs using an inexpensive patchwork design.
With a few cardboard boxes and some aluminum foil, you can make robot costumes that will be the hit of the party. Some easy-to-make masks of aluminum foil will help to make each costume a little different.
Preserve autumn leaves the old-fashioned way with these vintage tips from 1910 using wax, gum, olive oil and a warm iron.
See how Halloween costume patterns from the 1970s helped families sew creative costumes with superheroes, animals, and more homemade classics.
Discover old-fashioned activities for kids from the ’60s that still inspire fun, creativity and imagination today — no screens required.
Incredible Edibles, the candy-making Thingmaker counterpart, said that their Sooper Gooper would mold sugarless liquid Gobble Degoop into chewy gumdrop-like morsels in 4 flavors. Here’s how it worked.
Discover how folk art painting uses simple brushstrokes to decorate furniture and home goods, with vintage guides and designs from the 1940s and 1950s.
Here are some easy, clever & cute vintage pasta crafts that you can make, including a pineapple that would make a great centerpiece, and some pretty dried noodle trees.
Here are some vintage tips for how to tie-dye clothes, right from the 60s & 70s. The results are vibrant patterns, from geometric to lush organic effects.
Find some elegantly vintage Easter egg crafts and artsy inspiration right here! The ideas may be old, but they’ll probably seem new to you.
Here’s a sweet and pretty way to celebrate spring – with this vintage-style Easter egg tree craft! Here’s how you can make your own.
Bake an overnight bag for the Easter bunny, and something to put in it: An adorable retro-style salt dough Easter bread basket!
Find out how to make some sweet vintage Easter egg crafts for spring – everything from bunny-decorated eggs to lacquered lace eggshells.
Try your hand at these traditional patterns for Americana quilts – the pride of America’s past, and adaptable for many uses today.
The vintage Spirograph toys let you create millions of colorful, startlingly beautiful extraordinarily intricate designs in infinite variety – all you needed were pens, paper and the kit’s plastic gears and wheels. Take a look!
Rose Wilder Lane’s 1962 essay on weaving was really a love letter to American independence, stitched together with stories from history and home.
People of all ages will love these cute vintage Christmas cookie houses, which can be made easily and inexpensively. See examples and get directions here!
These 44 kid-friendly Christmas cookie decorating ideas evoke the cozy charm of vintage traditions. Baking fun for the entire family!
Adapted from an article that ran in Better Homes & Gardens print magazine back in December 1970, this cute craft how-to for “colossal Christmas balls”
The melted plastic Halloween decorations popular in the ’70s were ‘delightfully different’ and ‘captured the happy Halloween spirit.’
Here’s how to craft creative salt dough ornaments for Christmas! It’s easy to stir up a batch, and makes getting into the holiday spirit extra fun.
Back when cheap Halloween party decor was a distant dream, people had to make their Halloween decorations the old-fashioned way: by getting creative. Ghoul School 1919 is now in session!
These retro Christmas ornament craft ideas may be more than 50 years old, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less festive than you’d expect to see today! Take a look at how easy they are to do.
Here, look back at the rediscovered art of stenciling, plus see dozens of examples of traditional stencil patterns from throughout history!
Here are a few authentic old-fashioned ways to make homemade soap, with directions from the olden days in Nebraska back in 1908!
The old-fashioned Dymo label maker was easy to use and affordable – which meant that these colorful plastic sticky labels used to be seen almost everywhere and on everything.
Vintage oilcloth, a durable material traditionally made by coating canvas or linen with linseed oil to create a waterproof surface, has a storied history for household use, and was especially popular back in the 1940s and 1950s.
Below, in this vintage collection of 1970s kitchen decor ideas, come with us to explore the lively and diverse styles that existed back when bold
How did these Easter egg shrink wraps and egg decorating sleeves work? Find out here and see a retro collection of Disney decorations & other holiday designs!
Learn how to macrame with the 70s technique to create vintage-style projects – a macrame plant hanger, a belt, basket-style coasters and a macrame owl.
That characteristic mid-century modern flair — with an abundance of color, clean lines and geometric patterns — translated perfectly in these examples of 1950s Christmas wall decorations
Having a retro party for the holidays? Here are lots of crazy kitschy vintage Christmas appetizers you may want to serve… at your own risk.
Back in the late sixties, a small company started selling these vintage Make-A-Plate kits, which were a huge hit with kids, parents and teachers. What better gift for mom or grandma than a one-of-a-kind melamine plate featuring a child’s artwork?
Flash back a few decades to see the Kodak Instamatic camera – which defined amateur photography for a generation & inspired the digital photography of another!
See several 1960s sewing machines here. Turn the knob and automatically do straight stitching, fancy embroidery, mending, button-sewing and much more.
This collection of vintage Girl Scout uniforms, badges and insignia represents a century of tradition, friendship and — most of all — girl power.
Who remembers when these vintage 1950s Singer sewing machines were new? One big seller was the Swing-Needle SINGER Automatic, which came in black or beige, in lovely cabinet or portable style.
As long as antique buttons have adorned our clothing and shoes, people have been collecting them. Made from a multitude of materials – from metal to bone, wood to plastic – buttons are miniature pieces of everyday history.
Try this beautiful melted bead suncatcher DIY! These decorative plastic crafts can even be embedded with foil, glass nuggets, marbles, shells, and more for countless interesting designs.
The best part of this collection of vintage calendar towels is remembering the ones from years ago – just like our moms, aunts and grandmothers used to have in their kitchens.
Hot on the heels of the flower child era, back in 1974, Mattel introduced a set of toys that were sort of the anti-Barbie: The Sunshine Family dolls.
Here’s a collection of gingerbread houses to inspire you this holiday: a fairy-tale cottage, half-timbered country house, marvelous Victorian mansion, and many more – along with details on how to make your own classic gingerbread house.
Want to have a holiday get-together with a little retro charm? Check out these creative and colorful 1960s Christmas party decor ideas!
A Rice Krispies gingerbread house – or Christmas cottage – made from crispy rice cereal is easier and faster to put together than most conventional gingerbread houses! Here’s how to do it.
Take a look at these beautiful sequined ornaments and beaded fruit crafts from the 1960s & 1970s for a little DIY inspiration!
As an alternative to paintings, drawings and sculptures, antique bust silhouettes like these – hand-cut from paper – were a relatively affordable way to remember loved ones.
What was one of the hottest style trends of the seventies? It was the shawl, y’all! See several vintage 70s shawl styles here, straight from age of disco.
The chance to take a trip through the aisles of Toys R Us in the 1990s is over forever, but you can join us in reminiscing with this collection of the toys and games kids wanted back then!
Billions of 80s stickers were collected by millions of kids – and appeared on everything from binders to books, cassette tapes to sticker collection albums. Do you recognize any of these vintage stickers?
The vintage screen made of circles could work as a DIY project – this eye-catching retro room divider was simply made with craft hoops and oak strips.
This beautiful boho bathroom decor was created by none other than Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper back in the 70s, using a collection of flower prints she designed.
If you’re looking to make a bedroom look a little retro, take a look at these DIY headboards with a vintage look! They may be just the inspiration you need for some old-fashioned home decor.
As this girl’s interest and sewing expertise grew, she asked her parents to transform a tiny, unused back room into a super-efficient, light and cheerful sewing room just for her.
Remember apple head dolls – the early American craft with folk art roots that became popular again in the ’60s and ’70s? Find out how to make these shrunken apple dolls, and more about the art of dollmaking.
The best way to gift-wrap a bulky or odd-shaped kitchen appliance or utensil is – don’t! Give it a fanciful shape, instead – with Christmas paper, ribbons, ornaments and more.
When you were a kid, there was nothing else like the joy of old-fashioned treehouses or forts: a little getaway that you built (maybe with some help) that could be a clubhouse or castle or spaceship or simply a place for a little peace and quiet.
Here’s the ’80s way to use everyday corn syrup and tissue paper to make non-toxic face paints for Halloween or a school play!
Based on one of the many traditional needlework crafts, these vintage needlepoint designs might just inspire you to get creative in all-new ways!
What better use to make of those big, clumsy cartons that once held ar new refrigerator or range? Make a fun toyland for the kids with these creative DIY cardboard box fort & playhouse ideas!
Jigsaw puzzles: The fun & addictive fad that took over American living rooms — more than once (1908)
Jigsaw puzzles swept America not once but twice — first in 1908, then again in the Great Depression. Here’s the wild history behind the hobby.
This easy-to-make vintage cardboard dollhouse is a project that can grow with your children! Here’s how you can make it – along with tips for cute ways to decorating the little play house.
Antique scrapbooks have been made for generations – each era having their own creative styles as well as unique subject matter. Here’s a look back at how and what people were scrapping long ago.
Creativity is not something you are either born with or not: it needs to be discovered, nurtured, and expressed for it to grow. Here are 12 tips from the 1980s that are just as helpful today as ever, plus a look at some creative visions from the past.
These vintage Rig-a-Jig toy sets were popular back in the fifties, and were sort of a hybrid of TInkertoys, Lego and an Erector Set. See how they worked, and what you could create with them, here!
Put together a half dozen pieces of this DIY fun furniture for kids, and your child will have endless play ideas. Made from just one simple box construction, the pieces are great for pretend games, the right size to use as table and chairs.
Folk-art painted furniture: Upcycle & renew furniture with tips from famed vintage artist Peter Hunt
For decades, artist Peter Hunt specialized in upcycling furniture and found objects by renewing them with colorful peasant designs. Here are examples of his work, and tips for how you can create your own folk-art painted furniture!
These vintage zodiac cross-stitch designs could be used as-is, interspersed and contrasted with plain squares, or the designs adapted to many other uses — such as cross-stitch embroidery for table linens.
Here’s a cute way to upcycle an old milk carton (or even a similar juice carton). See how you can build it with this craft idea from the 1960s!
Have you ever thought about using some of the millions of pine needles that fall off the trees to make something useful? Here are more than 20 vintage pine needle crafts & decor ideas!
With this easy vintage DIY puffy happy face pin project, it’s easy to put on a happy face, a funny face, or any kind of face you fancy with soft, cuddly cotton creatures!
These pretty and old-fashioned paper Christmas ornaments are so easy to make, kids and adults can work on them together! As a bonus, they’re very cheap to create. Get directions and diagrams here.
This flip-over chair – in the original Hudson Valley version of the 1870s or a colorful adaptation – offers the fun of choosing between two seats with a quick flip of a finger.
This creative collection of ideas came from Crayola, the famous crayon maker, back in the 1950s. They suggest some simple old-fashioned ways for kids to have quiet fun at home with crayons and paper.
This carefree tie-on poncho is cut in just four identical pieces and put together with simple straight sewing. Best of all, it has a dozen uses, can be made in any number of different fabrics, and cut to any length you like.
Looking for a fun and creative holiday project that’s a little different? Check out these crafty and cute vintage Christmas decorations, based on ideas popular back in the sixties.
Old-fashioned orange pomander balls made with cloves first became popular around the 17th century, and have been in use ever since. Here’s how to make your own fragrant decoration!
Find out how to make these colorful Christmas decorations: Translucent Tissue paper stained glass art panels to make your rooms blaze with jewel-toned light.
Here are a few ideas for antique-style Christmas embroidery you can use to create small gifts. We have also included some bonus patterns, also from the early 1900s.
Want some retro-style holiday decor? Find out how to make some vintage Christmas crafts from the ’60s: a burlap wreath, tabletop Christmas trees, a starburst decoration, papier mache ornaments and more.
You can make these super easy wax & tissue paper flowers for Christmas or any time of year! This vintage craft uses basic supplies, but creates a surprisingly beautiful result!
This retro-style DIY bulletin board framed by satiny stars, clouds, and moon crescents promised to add a soft touch to any 80s teen’s bedroom.
Don’t toss your old metal cans – make them into something delightful, like these retro-style night lights with your own punched patterns!
These beautiful antique silhouettes were cut by hand by artist Eveline Maydell, whose portrait clients included many of society’s wealthiest men and women.
Take a look back at these creative handmade vintage quilts from the ’70s. These are the 51 prize winners out of almost 10,000 entries.
One little piece of felt, cut in a simple shape, a few quick stitches – and, presto! – a hat! Here are some simple vintage one-piece hats you can sew.
Want to make some simple retro ’50s style jewelry? If you’ve got the gift for DIY crafts, we have the how-to guide for you, direct from the fifties.
Here’s how to stencil a tray – transforming an inexpensive metal accessory into a family heirloom, with paint and these included vintage stenciling patterns.
These sweet bandana baby clothes are wearing tops made from the kind of cotton scarves you can buy anywhere. Here’s how to make these outfits from 1977!
