Thread: "burning" paper invites

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Greets:

I am thinking of sending out my invitations this year on "burnt edges" brown-ish paper. Anyone ever do this? I have never tried this; I have visions of me starting one teeny corner on fire and seeing the entire invitation going up in flames in half a nano second.

How do you burn paper without too much of it being burnt? I just want the mere edges to turn a crispy dark brown/black.

Any help/suggestions are appreciated!

TMama

Hey great idea. I've done this before with paper. I wrote a poem on a piece of paper and wanted to make it look old and worn. What I did before I even wrote on it was soaked it in tea. Try to just dip the paper in the tea a few times until you get the look you want. You shouldn't have to soak it for long. Then I let it dry for about a day.

After it was dry I used a silver colored pen to do my writing. It made it stand out pretty well. You should be able to use a black pen as well the tea only made the paper slightly brown. Then when I was done I burnt the edges. The way I did it was I held the paper at an angle so the flame would crawl up the edge. Then I quickly stamped it out with my hand before the flame got to big. It took a few passes on each edge before I was done.

You don't want to try to burn a whole edge at one time you will burn up your invitation. Just take your time on each edge. It will take some time but you should get the result you are looking for. Another tip is to use a blank sheet of computer paper so it has no lines. If you can write in caligraphy this will also enhance the old nostalic look.

Anyway I hope this helps good luck.

I use a wood burner -- it gives you more control then a lighter. Parchment paper already has an old look to it but if you want to use white paper there are several ways to age it. I have sprayed or soaked in lemon juice and put the paper in the oven to dry. I have also used tea bags and dried in the oven.

I have also used tea staining and I went with the lighter, the only major drawback is that the burnt edges can make it awfully messy. An alternative would be to cut the edges like they've been burned (after staining) and then paint them darker using watercolor paint to give the effect of being burnt. I recommend watercolor because of it's transparency, it's easier to blend, other paints will look obvious and show brush strokes.

In the past I have used resume paper in a copper color that had a great antiqued look without doing any tea staining (for some reason I was never successful) For the burning I had a candle, rolled the paper and carefully stuck the end into the flame, let it burn for just a few seconds and then carefully dipped the burning end into water. I found if you try to just blow it out, it will continue to singe past where you want it to, but the water stopped that process. The water also kept the paper from being really crumbly and making black stains on the burnt edges. Good luck! Make extras- because a few will go up in flames!

I did a similar thing for my wedding last year, where I made 'treasure map' with directions to the venue.

I printed the content, then soaked the printed sheets in tea for about 2 or 3 mins. Then hung on washing line to dry. Once they were dry, I burnt the edges on my gas hob. The knack was to let the flame burn up the edge, then put it out quickly. This seem to give a random sort of effect. See pic.

HTH

Ian

I used the brownish color resume paper also when I did my treasure map invites. I crumpled them up really good to make them "soft" and appear well used, then just stood over the sink with a BBQ lighter and went to town on them. Make sure to make them uneven for a more authentic look. Oh, and don't inhale the smoke, lol! (learned that one the hard way!)

Alot of great ideas here!

I have used the crumpled paper method as well, before burning - great effect. I started by printing on that inexpensive kids craft paper that comes in tablets in every grocery store. It already has on off-white, aged look. Then I crumpled and re-straightened the paper. I lit a candle and filled a water spritzer bottle (set to fine mist) nearby. from quite a distance I singed the edges of the paper very slowly and occasionally spritzed - rather than blew on - the paper to control the burn.

Sometimes the ink would run if it got wet, but I thought that this just added to the mysterious, creepy effect and they came out pretty good.

Good luck to you!

This is what I did for invitations one year. First I ripped the edges of the paper in a way so they were uneven-- sort of like you get when you burn paper. Then I dipped the whole paper in weak tea to darken it. The edges already picked up more color because of being ripped, but then I dipped the edges only into much stronger tea. That gave the edges a "burnt" sort of look without actually burning the paper.

Wow!! Fantastic suggestions you guys!!!! I really like the "dying in tea" idea AND crumpling up the paper to give it an old feel. YES!!! Thank you!!!!

I figured I'd print out LOTS of extras as I can be quite clutsy when trying things for the first time.

You guys ROCK!!!!

TMama