Arts and Crafts
Archives focused around arts and crafts, broadly inclusive.
Antique Pattern Library
"This ongoing project is an effort to scan craft pattern publications that are in the public domain, to preserve them, so we can keep our craft heritages in our hands. Most of these scans have been graphically edited to make the images easier for craft workers to see, and to reduce file sizes. They are available, for free, to anyone who wants them, for educational, personal, artistic and other creative uses."
Artbeads Tutorials free
"Learn to Bead with Artbeads.com... At Artbeads.com, we understand the joy and creativity that comes with beading. That’s why we’ve dedicated a special category for everyone eager to learn to bead. Whether you’re a beginner looking to start your journey in jewelry making, or an experienced crafter seeking new technologyniques, our extensive collection of free tutorials is your go-to resource."
Artbeads.com Kumihimo Tutorials
"Explore Traditional Japanese Braiding...Embark on a journey through the ancient art of Kumihimo with Artbeads, where our tutorials seamlessly blend traditional Japanese braiding with the vibrant world of beads. Our step-by-step guides are crafted for both beginners and seasoned crafters, offering everything from basic technologyniques to intricate designs. Enhance your creations with our specially curated selection of beads, perfect for Kumihimo projects. Discover the endless possibilities of braiding with beads and elevate your jewelry-making skills at Artbeads."
Dafont
"The fonts presented on this website are their authors’ property, and are either freeware, shareware, demo versions or public domain."
Identify Font
"Identifont was launched in November 2000 to provide designers with a tool to help them identify fonts or select the best fonts for their projects. Since then it has grown to become the largest independent directory of digital fonts on the Internet, with a number of unique tools for locating fonts for particular applications."
Maker World
3D model library/community. Accepts genAI models but requires them to be labeled.
Sentimental Baby
Personal blog, frequently discusses knitting, sewing, and books on fiber arts. Last updated 2015.
Sheep and Stitch
"Sheep & Stitch is more than just a site for knitting tutorials, patterns and inspiration. It’s based on a larger philosophy that everyone is a creator."
The Creator's Guide to Comics Devices
"This library will give you (creator, amateur, scholar, etc) practical instruction on devices that are available in comics."
Images
Collections of images, many are public domain. Refer to individual listings for more information.
Chromeography
"In praise of the chrome logos and lettering affixed to vintage automobiles and electric appliances — those unsung metal emblems and badges that are overlooked, forgotten, damaged, lost to time or the dump."
Dinosaur Pictures
"Welcome to the internet’s largest dinosaur database. Check out a random dinosaur, search for one below, or look at our interactive globe of ancient Earth! Whether you are a kid, student, or teacher, you’ll find a rich set of dinosaur names, pictures, and facts here. This site is built with PaleoDB, a scientific database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists over the past two decades."
Great Castles
"Most castles have similar features, though all are unique due to their location and the surrounding geography. Here, you will find floor plans to understand their impressive constructions."
HALTADEFINIZIONE
"In 2005, we invented a new way to look at art. Explore our image bank and its masterpieces in gigapixel format."
JSTOR
"Explore the world’s knowledge, cultures, and ideas... Search journals, books, images, and primary sources"
MessyBeast
"Messybeast.com ("Messybeast") is a privately maintained, not-for-profit archive of cat-related articles, information and clip-art. Messybeast is not a company, charity or non-profit organisation. Its main emphasis is cat care, cat welfare, feral cats and associated information for cat owners. It also contains general interest articles ranging from cloning and genetics through to the role of cats in idiom and urban mythology. A number of relatively scientific and technologynical topics are presented in plain English, making them accessible to those without a scientific background."
Pixabay
"Over 5.2 million+ high quality stock images, videos and music shared by our talented community."
The London Archives
"The London Archives is a free public archive focussing on the history of London from 1067 to the present day. Visit us to explore millions of historical manuscripts, maps, photographs, books and films or enjoy our exhibitions, events and workshops. Entrance is free and everyone is welcome."
Unsplash
"The internet’s source for visuals. Powered by creators everywhere."
Libraries
Libraries, some may be region-locked.
CK-12
"The CK-12 Foundation was founded with the mission to enable everyone to learn in his or her own way. We pair high quality content with the latest technologynologies. We equip students, teachers, and parents with everything they need. For free."
Hoopla Digital
Provides five free digital media borrows per month after the user logs in with a library for which they already have access (generally through a library card).
Media History Digital Library
"A free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound."
Project Gutenberg
"Project Gutenberg is a library of over 75,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thounitedstatesnds of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for you to enjoy."
Queer Liberation Library
"Queer Liberation Library (QLL) is fighting to build a vibrant, flourishing queer future by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community."
Other
Random other archives, uncategorized.
AFB Helen Keller Archive
"The Helen Keller Archival Collection at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) is the world’s largest repository of letters, speeches, press clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, architectural drawings, artifacts and audio-video materials relating to Helen Keller."
Alphametic/Cryptarithm Puzzles
"An alphametic puzzle (also sometimes known as a cryptarithm) is a type of puzzle where words are put together into an arithmetic formula such that digits can be substituted for the letters to make the formula true."
Archive of Our Own
"A fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic."
ASCII Art Archive
"A large collection of ASCII art drawings and other related ASCII art pictures."
Busy Beaver Button Museum
"Our mission is to share as much American history as possible through pin-back buttons. One may think that buttons are a very niche collection but they cover a wide range of cultural history. From large world events to the most obscure, buttons capture a people’s view of history that is expressed through design and messaging."
ComicFury
"ComicFury webcomic hosting is a free, easy to use and advertisement-free tool that will help you easily set up and host a website for your webcomic, without any technologynical knowledge. All you will have to worry about when using ComicFury is actually making the comics, the rest is provided by us."
Cross Stitch Quest
"Free geeky cross stitch patterns and reviews... I want to feel like I’ve contributed to something before I die, and so I cast cross stitch patterns into the ether that is the internet and perhaps one day I will think I’ve done all right. I will shout the things I love at the top of my lungs and hopefully someone will hear me and feel the same."
Cryptarithm Solver
"Tool/solver to resolve cryptarithms, a numeric puzzle which consists in a mathematical calculation in which letters have been replaced by digits to find."
DDoSecrets
"We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit in the US that archives and publishes hacked and leaked documents in the public interest."
DRAWING FOR NOTHING
"[A] free compendium for the artwork of the world’s canceled and troubled animated films."
Fontspace
"130,000+ Free Fonts... Free downloads of legally licensed fonts that are perfect for your design projects."
Freegal Music
"Offering over 18 million songs belonging to 200+ genres— including Sony Music’s catalog of legendary artists— Freegal Music+ is one of the most popular library services in the world, and with 200,000 songs added monthly, there’s always something new for listeners to discover. So what are you waiting for? All you need is your library card (and pin number) to join our 2.5 million+ users in browsing through our vast collection of today’s top hits, yesterday’s favorites, and curated playlists made just for you. (Access to Freegal is limited to patrons of subscribing libraries.)"
Freesound.org
"Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, and all sorts of bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse."
HugeQuiz
"hugequiz is home to a large number of mostly data-intensive quizzes. The biggest quizzes online!"
Irish Script on Screen
"Established in 1999, ISOS is the largest digital repository of Irish manuscripts. Over 450 manuscripts digitised."
Knitty
"[P]atterns for the people since 2002".
Knock Knock Jokes
"This is one of the largest collections of Knock Knock Jokes on the web, boasting more than 2,500 knock-knock jokes!"
Know Your Meme
"Know Your Meme is a website dedicated to documenting Internet phenomena: viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more."
LGBT Religious Archives Network
"The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) coordinates and supports the identification, collection and preservation of personal papers and organizational records from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender religious movements. To encourage scholarly research and historical study of these important movements for social change, LGBTQ-RAN disseminates information about these records and provides and facilitates access to them, using digital technology when possible."
Live Well Bake Often
"Here at Live Well Bake Often you’ll find hundreds of classic baked goods and desserts that I’ve created in my own kitchen. All of the recipes on my site are tested multiple times to ensure their accuracy. You’ll also find step-by-step instructions and as much detail as possible with each recipe because I want you to have 100% success when you make them. My hope is that Live Well Bake Often will be your ultimate resource for baking. I want you to feel completely confident when it comes to making any recipe on my site – even if you’ve never baked from scratch in your entire life."
mathematics Aids
"Math-Aids.Com provides free mathematics worksheets for teachers, parents, students, and home schoolers. The mathematics worksheets are randomly and dynamically generated by our mathematics worksheet generators. This allows you to make an unlimited number of printable mathematics worksheets to your specifications instantly."
noclip
Searchable database of virtual environments from video games - navigable with a floating camera.
Pantographia: A Specimen Book of All the Alphabets Known on Earth (1799)
Digitized version of "Pantographia: A Specimen Book of All the Alphabets Known on Earth (1799)"
Puzzle Baron Cryptograms
"If you love to solve cryptograms, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve got thounitedstatesnds and thounitedstatesnds of unique cryptograms ready and waiting to be solved. Feel free to play casually as a guest, or, if you’re a more competitive sort, register a free account and be automatically entered in each of our monthly cryptograms competitions!"
Puzzle Baron Logic Puzzles
"Welcome to the world’s largest web site devoted to logic puzzles! We’ve got more than 25,000 unique puzzles available for play, both online and the old fashioned way - with pencil and paper. Feel free to solve online just for fun, or, for an added challenge, register a free account and compete against thounitedstatesnds of other solvers to make it into our Logic Puzzle Hall of Fame!"
Royal Road
"Royal Road® is the home of web novels and fan fictions! In our amazing community, you can find various talented individuals who write as a hobby or even professionally, artists who create art for them, and many, many readers who provide valuable feedback and encouragement."
RSN Stitchbank
"The Royal School of Needlework created the RSN Stitch Bank to mark its 150th anniversary and continue its founding mission to preserve the art of hand embroidery. The RSN Stitch Bank aims to digitally conserve and showcase the wide variety of the world’s embroidery stitches and the ways in which they have been used in different cultures and times."
"The RSN Stitch Bank is an ongoing project. More stitches will be added regularly and the RSN will be working with partners around the world to include stitches from different traditions."
Stitchpoint's Free Cross Stitch Writer
"StitchPoint develops, produces and sells stitching kits professionally and with much love. This website is the only existing selling outlet! Dutch designer Grea van Vlerken founded the company in 2005 and since then several people around her have contributed in making StitchPoint a success."
The Anatomy of Germanic Art
"A Quick Guide to the Styles of Nordic Animal Ornament -- This guide is a prequel to The Anatomy of Viking Art and explores the ornamental styles of Early Medieval Scandinavia during the Germanic Iron Age (c. 400 – 800 CE). From the beginning of the Migration Period to the start of the Viking Age, this guide breaks down each style to its basic components in an easy to understand and straightforward manner."
The Deleuze Seminars
"The Deleuze Seminars website is publishing English translations of the seminar lectures given by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) at the University of Paris between 1971 and 1987."
The Musical Time Machine
"Radiooooo is a collaborative website, which goal is to open each and everyone’s horizons through culture and beauty."
Vatican Archives Digitized Manuscripts
"Welcome! This project is a continuation of the work started by Jean-Baptiste Piggin tracking new manuscripts added to the digitized manuscripts of the Vatican Libraries."
Vintage Crafts and More
"Free Vintage Craft Patterns: Sewing, Crochet, Knitting, Embroidery, Quilting and More!"
Wiktionary
"Welcome to the English-language Wiktionary, a collaborative project to produce a free-content multilingual dictionary. It aims to describe all words of all languages using definitions and descriptions in English."
WindowSwap
"Open a window somewhere in the world".