Herbal Antique Paper For Your Book of Shadows

I absolutely love the look of antique paper.  Something about old books and those pages that have seen time I just love.  I have seen many Book of Shadows and Journals that come with this type of paper and have always been a bit envious of it.  I use a binder for my Book of Shadows, and really wanted to be able to achieve the same look.  So I did a bit of research on how to make antique papers.  Most of the methods that I saw mentioned using coffee grounds.  I didn’t really want my Book of Shadows to take on that sort of smell though so I did a bit of digging to figure out how to make it using herbal teas.

You may want to play with the type of tea and tea blends to get the scent and color you want.  Depending on the darkness of your tea, is how dark your paper will be.  I used a soothing tea blend to make mine.  I wound up using about 4 tea bags to a bit over 2 cups of water.  You can use different types of paper for this as well.  The thicker papers may be a bit harder to absorb.  I went for a pulpy looking paper that I found at Staples.  You could see the grains in the paper really well.

I set the paper on a cookie tray and used a sponge to apply the tea liberally to it.  I let it soak in for about 5 minutes.  I then put the cookie tray into the oven on warm.  I left it there for almost an hour.  I kept checking back on it to make sure that it wasn’t burning.  As the paper dried it began literally lifting off the cookie sheet.  By the time it was dry it came right up for me.  The paper was curled up a bit from drying, so I set a thin towel over it and ironed it a bit to straighten it.

This would be great not only in your Book of Shadows but you can use it in spell workings, for scrolls, cards, wall art, etc.  Get creative with it!

Much Love and Many Blessings,

Jasmeine Moonsong