Tuesday, September 28, 2010

How to Make a Treasure Map or Wanted Poster


T recently read The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs for his eighth grade Language Arts class.  One of the assessments assigned was to create a "Wanted" poster for the monkey's paw.  After T finished designing his poster, he made it look old, yellowed, and worn by following this process:

  • First, crumple the paper into a tight ball.  
  • Unfold it and lay it flat on a cookie sheet.
  • Brew two or three cups of strong tea or coffee.  We used tea and I left the tea bags in for a few minutes to make the tea as dark as possible.  
  • Pour the tea over the paper on the cookie sheet and swirl it around a bit to make sure the paper is completely covered.  


  • Let the paper sit in the tea or coffee for five minutes and then pour the liquid into the sink.
  • Carefully move the wet paper to a dry plate.
  • Using a hairdryer on high, dry the paper until it is almost dry.  Then dry on low for about two    minutes until completely dry.  My hairdryer is pretty powerful - the paper was completely dry in less than two minutes.  
  • This step is unnecessary, but T thought it would make the finished product even better.  Carefully burn a few areas around the edge of the paper.  Be careful!!!!

T's project was a wanted poster, but this is a very cool way to make a treasure map too.  The flash on my camera doesn't really allow you to see the color of this paper.  It looks much better than the photo.

2 comments:

Ticia said...

I love doing that to papers it's so cool.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

This is an interesting way to "age" the paper - I can certainly see some treasure maps in our future. The poster looks pretty neat.