Achieving a parchment-paper look with plain print paper.

[the-golem]

Here's a quicky way to achieve an antique look to your maps.

First, preheat your oven to 350*F ... ok, while the temperature might be a joke, I actually stumbled across this method a week ago while baking cookies. I took a shortcut in the process, and laid down some waxed paper on the cookie sheet before I stuck it in the oven. When it was done, the paper had yellowed a bit. So, I took another sheet of normal printer paper, stuck it right on the oven rack, and left it there for ... too long. When I pulled it out, it was quite dark brown, and there were racklines on it. Also, it crumpled rather easy.

As I type, I'm attempting another test on this method. Will report back later...

Edit: I've found that heating the oven to about 270 and tossing the paper on top of a cookie sheet upturned -- for between two to three minutes -- provides a sufficient yellowing/aging process that resemles parchment. Photograph attached to illustrate proof of concept. I'm sure it's obvious, but there are two sheets of printer paper. The one on the left is the "aged" version. Although, I suppose baked would be more accurate!