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 The paper is the hardest thing to get. The commercial parchment we've seen looks
too phony, so we have to prepare it ourselves which is very time consuming and a
real mess! We've
studied ancient papers to see where they crack, wrinkle, tear and smudge
and every effort is made to duplicate that look so your document will look
like the real thing. Your friends will be fooled when they see your name
on an historic, sealed "official" document.
First the paper is folded repeatedly by hand until it looks very worn.
Then it is ripped around the edges so it will look like old paper does
when it gets brittle and cracks. We've studied old books and manuscripts so
we could imitate the aging process on our "Olde Paper©". The idea is to make to make
it look like it was a long lost document that had been abused by
carelessness and time.
Then it's crinkled and flattened-out.
After that we soak them in a secret mixture of different leaves
and other stuff. Soaking is the worst part of the process because a lot of the sheets fall apart or tear in-two when they're wet and taken out of
the bath and separated.
Last comes the drying. Each fragile paper is set in the sun to dry and get
crisp (they're usually blown all over the yard when the wind comes up).
When dried they are flattened and pressed with heavy
weights for about six months to make them look like they were pressed within the pages of a book and
long forgotten.
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