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Choose a bookish gift around the reader's everyday habits, from a literary tote to a printed cardigan, with tips for getting the details right.

Meet Jessie, the school librarian and creator behind Toadstool Thrift & Craft, where books, botanicals, vintage imagery, and everyday style meet.

Three holiday cardigan ideas for readers, teachers, and librarians, with simple outfit formulas and practical tips for choosing your print.

Free journal spread idea using vintage ephemera.

Beautiful old illustrations, wonderfully strange creatures, and a few unexpected treasures from the past, all free to download! One of my favorite things about collecting vintage images is that you never quite know what you'll find. One minute you're admiring a beautiful botanical illustration, and the next you're looking at a very serious toad, a giant beetle, or a dancing pumpkin. This collection is a little bit of everything, which is exactly how I like it! I've gathered s

Thanksgiving and Christmas dresses for book lovers, teachers, and anyone who wants holiday fashion with a little personality. Explore four whimsical bookish designs.

Be sure to read until the end, download the free printable Brass Collection Guide. How to spot the good stuff, avoid shiny imposters, and know when that $6 thrift store candlestick deserves a second look There is something about vintage brass. Maybe it’s the warm golden color. Maybe it’s the satisfying weight of it. Or maybe it’s the fact that you can walk into an estate sale, spot a tarnished little brass duck hiding behind a ceramic clown, and immediately think: Well. Obvio

Some people collect sensible things. I collect images that make me say, “That would look lovely printed on canvas for my bathroom,” immediately followed by, “Why is there a demon in that shrub?” This collection has range: delicate flowers, spectacular frogs, mysterious diagrams, and gentlemen whose head shapes supposedly reveal whether they’re husband material. Naturally, I thought you needed them. These 15 antique images are free to download and reuse, ready for junk journal

It starts innocently enough. You spot a slightly unhinged cardboard cat at an antique shop. Then comes a grinning pumpkin. Before long, you are discussing paper lanterns with the seriousness usually reserved for real estate. Welcome to collecting vintage Halloween. As a librarian and ephemera collector, I love how these small survivors tell us what people found funny, frightening, and worth saving. If you’re curious about starting a collection, here’s a little history, what t

It happens every year. December arrives, the holiday decorations go up, and suddenly that little elf is back, expecting you to come up with a new idea every single night. Whether you love the tradition or quietly regret ever starting it, the Elf on the Shelf has become part of the holiday season for many families. The kids adore waking up to see where the elf landed, but remembering to move it and inventing something clever at the end of a long day... can be a lot. That’s why

There is something wonderfully unsettling about old photographs, antique medicine labels, forgotten advertisements, and Halloween images from another era. Sometimes the strangest pieces of history are the ones that make you stop scrolling and look twice. A mysterious figure appears beneath a veil. Children pose in homemade costumes. Houdini promises to expose fraudulent mediums. A cheerful pharmacy label casually announces POISON in enormous red letters. And somewhere in the

And yes... keep reading, because at the end of this post you’ll find out how to download a complete set of all 78 vintage tarot cards. There are certain pieces of vintage artwork that seem to have escaped their own time. More than a century after they first appeared, the mysterious figures, strange landscapes, golden skies, swords, stars, cups, moons, and wandering characters of the Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot remain instantly recognizable. Even if you've never had a tarot readin

If you spend enough time digging through estate sales, thrift stores, flea markets, and boxes of mysterious kitchen gadgets, eventually you’ll encounter something that makes you ask: “What on earth is this thing?” If it’s a heavy glass disk full of holes, a little metal cage, a wicked-looking bed of spikes, or a ceramic animal with strategically placed openings, there’s a good chance you’ve found a flower frog. And before you toss it back into the miscellaneous bin, take a cl

Blue Willow china looks familiar even when the maker is unknown. The blue-and-white scene, with its bridge, willow tree, pagoda, and birds, has appeared on dinner tables for more than two centuries. That long history is part of its charm, but it also makes dating and valuing a piece tricky. This guide works as a practical list. It follows a rough order: history first, identification next, value last. If you prefer to watch a video, scroll to the bottom of this page for a vide

The new arrivals have officially landed at Toadstool Thrift & Craft, and apparently I’ve decided subtlety is overrated. This round has a little something for the readers, the vintage weirdos, the ocean-obsessed, and anyone who has ever looked at their bathroom and thought, You know what this room needs? More personality. From bookish crossbody bags to vintage-inspired coastal finds and our delightfully ridiculous Cheeky Seats, here’s what’s new at Toadstool. 📚 New Bookish Cr

August Freebies Are Here — Because You Shouldn't Have to Always Pay for Cool Old Stuff Hello, Toadstool friends! The August Free Downloads have officially landed! This month, members can grab 15 vintage art and advertising images, a wonderfully random little collection of old-school illustrations, charming artwork, quirky ads, and other treasures from the past. Use them for junk journals, collage, scrapbooking, classroom projects, crafting, digital designs, or just hoard them

Hi Toadstool Friends! I may have a slight problem with bringing home old, unusual, beautiful, weird, and completely unnecessary things. Good news: my problem is now your auction opportunity. Toadstool Thrift & Craft Online Auctions are officially up and running! I’ll be listing a rotating collection of vintage treasures, antiques, collectibles, ephemera, home decor, oddities, and those wonderfully strange finds that make you stop and say, “Okay…but I kind of NEED that.” Si

Exclusive Member Perk Digital Treasures for Your Next Project Hello fellow maker, At Toadstool Thrift & Craft, I believe that the best stories are the ones you create by hand. As a thank you for being an essential part of our creative community, I have curated a special collection of digital resources just for you. These downloads are designed to add a touch of whimsy and history to your scrapbooks, journals, and craft projects. Before you jump into the download folder, To

Fundraising works best when people feel invited, not pressured. A strong program gives supporters a simple way to help, offers products they actually want, and turns a purchase into a shared act of care. That is the heart of the Toadstool Fundraising Program. Instead of asking a small group to do all the work, Toadstool gives schools, nonprofits, clubs, teams, faith groups, and community organizations a friendly way to bring more people into the effort. Supporters can choose

I buy miscellaneous lots of vintage paper at auctions, I see a slightly battered box filled with forgotten things and immediately think, Well, somebody needs to love this. Old photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, letters, ticket stubs, advertisements, book pages, handwritten recipes, I want all of it. The more mysterious the collection, the better. A neatly labeled archive is lovely, but a dusty auction box marked “miscellaneous paper” is where the real treasure hunti