How do you make paper look old?

[Melanie]

My history homework was to write a diary of a sailor, during the 3 years of going around the world, during the Renaissance. The teacher said the paper needs to look old, how do you do that?

Please help!

[j_sun]

Do you have an old tea-bag?

A trick used by forgers was to wet the surface of the page using an old tea bag - thereby staining the page unevenly (with tea) and letting it dry.

Try this on a white page of paper first - to see how it would look.

(Make yourself a cup of tea first - then let the tea-bag cool before you try this!)

[aero]

i think you can soak it in tea to make it look parchment.  Add some creases and wrinkles into it and maybe a few small tears?

[coco]

Tea stain it. Just make some black tea and paint it onto the paper with a paintbrush. Let it dry. If it needs to look older just brush more on. Tea staining works really well because it turns the paper all yellowy and old looking. You could also screw it up a bit and rip pieces off. Btw write on it AFTER you've teastained it or the ink will run. This will make it look old but also incomprehensible. Hope this helps xxx

[geoffrey]

It needs to be a bit crumpled, so screw it up and iron it a few times. Next is the discolouration, paper tends to turn a little brown, a tested method for this is to stain it, weak tea is great for this (no milk though it would smell!) just brew up a cup and sponge it on, dry it off in the oven and repeat as many times as you like to develop the colour. Old paper wouldn't have dead straight edges, so before you start the other steps, use a ruler pressed near the edge to tear down each side, will still be straight but a little rougher.

[federox]

dip the paper in coffee and water mixture for 1 hour and then dry it.

[formula1]

take a paint brush and dip it in coffee, then brush the paper with the coffee, let it dry and it should look old!