Making Aged Paper

Making paper look aged is easy and you only need a few things - brewed instant coffee, espresso powder or tea, some paper and an oven.
Truth be told, there are a number of ways to age paper, you don’t necessarily even have to have an oven if you want to wait and have your paper dry naturally, but the oven speeds things up.

I decided to make some old maps on my aged paper.
First off I tried printing them out first and then aging the paper, something I had seen on YouTube. But the ink ran when I put them through the ‘aging’ process, more about that in a minute.

My second attempt was done the other way around, aging the paper first, putting it under my book press (you can use heavy books) and then running it through my printer.

I’ll give the process first, and then show examples of my final product along with the actual, real 17th century map that I copied.

These three pieces were stained with tea bags but the darker foxing marks and water stains were achieved with dissolved spots of espresso powder. Instant coffee granules will also work.

Directions to Age Paper

Supplies Need:

• Paper, size is up to you and may depend upon what you’re going to use it for (ex: if you are going to print it, you need it to fit in your printer)

• Brewed instant coffee or espresso powder or tea - how long you let it steep will affect the color of the tint, you only need about 1/4-1/2 cup unless you are doing many pages. You can also use tea bags - the photo overall coloring of the paper above was done with tea bags.

• Oven or you can let air dry

• Pan with side, like a jellyroll pan etc - you be soaking your paper so it doesn’t have to be deep but it has to be large enough to accommodate the paper

• Sponge or some paper towels for dabbing and moving the tinted water around

• Printer, if printing

Step by Step Directions

Pre-heat your oven to 200F

1. Decide if you want to crumple or crease your paper. You can do this afterward but if you do it first, the tint will likely seep into crevices and be darker, which you may want.

2. Lay your paper in the pan flat

3. Take your brewed coffee or espresso powder or tea and pour it over the paper, just enough to get it started and then you can finish spreading with a sponge or blotter of paper towels.

4. If you’re using instant coffee granule or espresso powder, dropping single grains (of coffee) or a sprinkling of the powder, will give you ‘foxing’ the darker discoloration spots often seen on old paper. Tea doesn’t work as well, but you can dry and dab some darker spots.

5. Pour off any excess tint water with the paper still in the pan and flat and then put the pan with the paper in the oven.

6. Take out pans and paper when paper begins to curl at sides and check on it. It may need another minute or two or it may be done, just make sure it’s dry.

7. If you’re planning on running your paper through a printer you need to flatten it. If you have a press, great. If you don’t, stick it under a stack of heavy books for 24 hours.

8. Your paper is done and you can print on it or do whatever you like with it.
   NOTE: If you are running the paper through a printer, make sure paper is dry and has no left over coffee, espresso or tea grit on it. All printers are different, it worked perfectly on mine but if you suspect that your printer will not take it or cause it damage, then skip this step. If you have a laser printer it may work to print your paper before tinting it.

This is what happened when I printed my maps before I stained the paper - a lot of bleeding and ink washaway.

Different Methods Different Results

Variations that will affect your final result are:

The kind of paper used, the color of paper used, how strong your coffee, tea or espresso brew is, whether you crumple your paper or fold it and so on. There are other factors I’m sure I’m forgetting.

This map of antique Britania was made using a laid, very warm off white paper. I used espresso powder for staining and then went back and placed more color on random parts of the page. I crumpled it a bit before staining and pressed and let dry. The following day, I ran it through my printer and printed the map.

This map was done with the same process as the Britannia except I started off with a piece of bright white paper, both are good quality paper made with cotton. I did not add as much extra coloring on this one and I folded vs crumpling.

This is the actual, real map from the 17th century

This is an antique map I own, when it was created it was first engraved and later hand-colored as many of these were, so when you see this map there are different variations depending upon what colors the artist chose to use.

I’m included this to show what an old map actually looks like.
It doesn’t look very dark brown (like a grocery bag) and they don’t usually have charred edges. They do often show age around the edges but not so much with the overly exaggerated torn edges seen in ‘ye olde treasure map’ kind of examples, but rather little nicks and folds. In the case of the real map above, it has quite a bit of repair to it.

As you can see it has been patched in places so that it strengthens the back making the front more secure.

Watermarks

Old maps and papers very often have a watermark too.
This one has a ‘jester’ watermark which was commonly seen in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The watermark that is apparent when you hold it up to light.
You can also see that this is a laid paper which has the tell-tale horizontal lines and vertical chain lines which come from the deckle and mold it was made on.

Maps that have fanciful illustrations on them are terrific if you’re creating a prop map. I bought this map for it’s whimsical cartouches (the little insets at the top with writing in them, here shown with the two sea creatures holding up the scroll make up the cartouche) along with the little ships and land marks such as mountains, forts, greens etc.