Secrets to Prints that Look Vintage
When you think about Farmhouse decorating does your mind drift to vintage? Mine does. Especially when I am thinking about prints to put on the wall. Botanicals, birds, bees, farm prints, they all need to have some vintage flair to them. so what’s the secret to make prints look old? Handmade papers. Yup handmade papers will make anything you print on them even prettier. My favorite place to get them is from Etsy at White Dragon Paper . I order 10 sheets at a time. If I keep going through it as fast as I have been I may have to learn to make it myself and then share of course. The texture of this paper just screams handmade and vintage. They are available in deckle edge, which is the irregular edges, or the straight edge. The picture below is a paper that has some flower pieces in it, but so far I have only used white.
How to make these
Find a print that you want to make and download it to your computer. The ones pictured above are from The Graphics Fairy The link is in my resource library in How to Add Farmhouse Charm without breaking the Bank. Not a member, just sign up for my newsletter and you are in.
After you have the download, put the handmade paper in your printer. It’s pretty thick so I would use a cardstock setting if you have one. A sheet feeder would work as well. Either way, just do one at a time. If something jams you will not have any more than one piece of the paper wasted.
For some prints you can use them just as they are out of the printer. The botanical prints I used had a white stripe down each side so I had to go on to the next step.
Tearing
I just literally tore the edges on both sides and the bottom. Use your finger next to the paper to control the tear or just let it take chunks out. I used my finger in the tear in this picture, so it’s relatively straight. This is what it looked like when I was done with the edges.
I didn’t like the white edges, so I decided to dye them with coffee since that’s what I was drinking at the time. Tea would work too. I just took a paper towel and dipped it into the coffee, then gently wiped the edges. You barely have to touch them. If you used an inkjet printer be especially careful, as the ink will bleed if you touch it with the wet rag.
Here is the final print, I could have gone over the edges again to make them darker, or used stronger coffee, but I was happy with the way it looked. so I decided to stop there.
This is one printed on handmade paper without having the edges ripped or dyed. The link to this print is in my Parrot Lovers Gift Guide.
I hope this inspired you to try doing some prints on handmade paper to unlock the Secrets to Prints that Look Old. I can’t believe it took me so long to think of doing this. Want to learn how to make the Bull clip frames I used with these? Follow along right here.
Till Next Time…
