Create Your Own Old-Fashioned Distressed Paper

If you are a paper and letter fanatic like me, you probably look for different ways to decorate and make your paper look different. Distressing paper can be a fun project that you can do with your family and friends or even just by yourself. It is very easy to take some sheets of paper and distress them giving them the look of old parchment.

Supplies:

Paper ivory or cream colored can often give the best effect.
Tea Bags
Sponge
Water

Directions:

Boil the water you have and soak the tea bags in the water. How long you soak them will depend on the darkness you want for your distressing. Set the teabags aside to rub over the paper after the sponge if you would like for a little deeper and added effect once you are done soaking them.

Take your sponge and apply the tea over the paper in the pattern you wish. I personally always fully saturate the paper. You do have to be careful not to get it to wet or it will tear and break. There is a fine line to walk with wetting paper.

Once the paper is wet and as you like it, you have two drying choices. You can leave it out to air dry, or my personal favorite you can turn your oven onto a low setting of 200 place the paper on a flat cookie sheet and bake until dry. The baking process will give your paper a very antique "aged" look as well as a crackly texture. When I am creating paper for letters I want to look like old documents this is the method I choose.

This technique is good for many kinds of paper and any kind of documents you want to use it for. Wanted posters are a great use for distressed paper. If you have, western themed rooms in your house take the distressed paper that you created and put it in the printer. You can use your favorite graphics program to print up pictures if your family or your favorite real life outlaw. Label your Wanted and how much for the reward, hit print and you have a fantastic looking old-fashioned wanted poster. For a little added effect, you can burn the corners slightly if you desire.