How to Ink Stain Paper To Create A Vintage Look

I keep flicking through crafting mags or various luscious blogs and seeing lovely embellishments or cards where the edges of the paper had been inked to make it look aged. I always thought how great this looked and how I would like to try it out myself. Now I know for some of you more experienced crafters this may seem very straight forward, but to someone who had never done this before I really didn't have a clue how to go about it. And clearly it's too straight forward for many a tutorial as I couldn't find that much to show me the way! But after hunting around I threw a few ideas together and came up with a plan of attack, and thought I would record it as I did - so here you go...

You will need:

*Whatever relevant craft you are working on and would like to ink (although it may be worth trying it out on a piece of scrap paper first)
*An ink pad - I chose a black/brown one as I wanted it to look aged but you can choose any colour that is relevant to your theme.

...and that's all folks!

Instructions:

1. Get the item you want to ink.

2. Get your ink pad - now I know some go for the more expert (and by that I mean expensive) pads such as Tim Holtz's Distress Ink Pads, however I found one in the dollar store and it worked a treat!

My dollar store ink pad!

2. At a 90 degree angle run the edge of your paper along the ink pad, this provides just a touch of colour around the edges.

Inking at 90 degree angle

The result

3. To get a more defined look put the paper at 45 degrees and brush it towards you across the ink pad, in short quick strokes.

Inking at 45 degree angle

The result (sorry for the blurry photo)

It's as easy as that, yet it can really enhance your project! Check out this bunting I made, I think inking the edges of the circles really added that 'vintage' feel to it.