How to quickly age paper at home

Aged paper is popular with lovers of various types of needlework: scrapbooking, decoupage, as well as those who like to create original things. A vintage style wedding invitation on aged paper will match the general mood of the celebration. Do-it-yourself greeting card is best made on aged paper. Use fonts in the style of the 19th century, thanks to which the letters are obtained with curls, as if drawn in pen and ink. Place on the card verses of your own composition, glorifying the beauty of the one to whom it will be addressed. And the girl will be impressed much more than a huge bouquet of flowers or a teddy bear for half a sofa.

In which style do you use aged paper?

Paper paper is different, this also applies to aged paper. Depending on the style in which the craft will be made, the method of aging paper is selected. To date, the most popular and used styles are the following:

1. Vintage style. It consists in giving things false antiquity. The style is characterized by heavy tones of beige and brown colors. It should give the impression that the paper darkened under the influence of sunlight and time, scuffs appeared on it, the edges were frayed and burned in some places (it is assumed that a lighted candle fell on the paper). The best method of “aging” paper is distress, which uses heavily brewed coffee, ink, sandpaper, and a stamp pad.
2. Heritage (heritage). In fact, this is an analogue of the vintage style, it is only used to design family albums and portrait and thematic photographs. And not the paper is aging, but the photographs themselves. For example, when the young generation, surprisingly similar to their great-grandmother, is placed in the photo next to her ancestress. For less contrast, photos are made older by the heritage method.
3. Shabby Chic (scuff) style. It is characterized by pastel shades (soft pink, blue, pale green, beige), bruising of the paper, the effect of cracks, applying soil to the paper, curled edges.

What techniques exist to give the effect of antiquity to paper

There are special techniques that can recreate a particular effect.

1. Craquelure is the effect of creating a crack on a varnished or primed coating. Recreate the illusion of cracks in paintings. In ancient times, craquelures (cracks) appeared in the paintings due to a violation of technology. For example, due to an insufficient amount of primer, the lower layers of paint absorbed moisture from subsequent new layers, as a result of which they quickly dried and cracked. There are special craquelure paints and varnishes, which when applied to paper give the effect of cracks.
2. Distress is the artificial aging of paper using organic products such as coffee, tea or milk. The ruler and scissors loosen the structure of the edges of the paper so that they look shabby from time to time. In stationery stores you can find special distress ink. After uniform application to a sheet of paper and complete drying, traces of uneven drying, scuffs and burnout remain.
3. Embrossing or embossing on paper. Obtained using stencils or stamps. Food foil, glittering powder, etc. are also suitable. Embossing creates convex initial words that are surrounded by golden or silver paint.Against the background of aged paper, all this looks very impressive and unusual.
4. Logging This method helps to recreate the text typed on an old pre-war typewriter. Logging is used to describe events displayed in photographs. It looks much more appropriate than ordinary handwriting.

What improvised materials are used to age paper

Plain black tea
Take a sheet of A4 white office paper. Brew in a mug from 5 to 10 tablespoons of ordinary black tea without flavoring (the “older” the final result should look, the more spoons of tea you put).

After 10 minutes, strain the tea leaves into a bowl through a strainer. Hold the tea leaves for 5 minutes. Remove the sheet, put on the table and blow dry.

When the moisture evaporates, go over the sheet with an iron through a piece of cotton fabric. Then, in a chaotic order, make a few drops. To give a “soot effect”, hold the finished sheet over a hot burner.

Natural ground coffee:

• remember the paper well with your hands
• make a glass of boiling water 5 tablespoons of ground coffee
• pour the tea leaves into a bath or bowl
• hold the sheet there for 5 minutes
• remove and blow dry with an iron or hairdryer

Milk
Pour half a glass of milk with the highest% fat content. Work on the edges of an A4 sheet with sandpaper and nail scissors. Using a brush, apply milk all over the sheet. Take a hot iron and “stamp” it on the surface of the paper with quick movements.

It's easy to get old paper. However, do not overdo it, because over time the sheets fade on their own. Excessive aging can lead to the fact that the family album, albeit very stylish and colorful, will have to be moved to a modern, but more reliable.

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