Need to make some realistic treasure maps.

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How can I turn normal A4 white paper into old looking parchment? Need to make perhaps forty sheets before tomorrow night.

Any help gratefully received.

I usually stain with tea and coffee and then place under the grill for a bit and burn off the edges with a match.

Now I'm not usually very good at arts & crafts, but I remember popping white A4 under the grill and keeping a VERY close eye on it! It ended up browny yellow with slightly crispy edges!

Otherwise, I'd stain it with cold tea and leave to dry overnight.

Might work, unless anyone else has a more sensible suggestion!

scrunch it up, smooth it out, dip tea bag in hot water, squeese out excess and wipe over smoothed out/scrunched up paper.
if you then need to draw or write on it iron it first.

hth

Okay, thanks everyone for your quick replies. Just boiling the kettle and I've put the grill on. Will try one of each suggestion.

Thank you so much.

what about lighting the edges to give it a burnt look, but do this yourself obvioulsy

Scrunch it up before covering it with coffee. Then sprinkle some coffee grounds on it (sparingly!) for age spots. Maybe rip the edges before staining with coffee too.

Okay, tried a few different methods but the one that I think looks the best is scrunched, stained in tea and then put under the grill. There's a weird smell in the house now but I've just done five sheets and had to stop because the paper was being burnt and thought I might need to break out the fire extinguisher.

Thanks for all your help on that one. How do I go about wrapping the parchment when I've wrote the clues on? Is it better to use ribbon or wax or string?