How to Age Paper - 6 easy technique to make paper look old

If you want to give a pristine white paper a browned, unevenly-colored aged appearance and parchment-like texture you need to use an aging technique. I love using my own aged paper for my vintage and steampunk projects. It's also very cost effective because you only need a few ingredients to create this effect instead of buying lots of expensive paper.

There are a few techniques to age paper:

Coffee

I'm not a coffee drinker but this aroma filled powder can be much more than just a bevarage, it can be used to age paper and give it a brown antique look.There are two ways to acheive this effect:

Painting with coffee

Dipping in coffee

Tea

Tea staining will give you a lighter color and more suttle result than coffee. You can use the tea bag itself to stain the paper directly or dip the paper in the tea. You can dry the stained paper in the oven or in a sunny place.

Tea Staining

Spray and Ink

Use a blender and a combination of distress inks like wallnut and vintage photo and ink your paper to achieve an aged look. Another technique is to spray the paper with spray ink.

Spraying

Paint

To achieve an aged effect with paint you would need a few shades of brown and to work in stages.

Layers of paint

Here's a really cool technique with shoe polish.

So many fun techniques to try. I hope you'll try at least one, because the effectis worth it! Do you have other techniques or ideas to distressor age papers? Share in the comments!

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