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Lemon Juice Burning

2 January 2004 3 Comments

Materials:
Paper
Lemon or lime juice
Plastic container
Paintbrush
Sponge
Heat gun
Tile

How to do it:
(Click on the images for an enlarged picture of each step)

Tear the edges of your paper for a ragged effect. Pour a little lemon juice into a plastic container, and brush or sponge around outer edge of paper. Juice might also be splattered or sponged across the full sheet—try a couple of practice sheets to see what happens.

Place juicy paper on a piece of tile. Begin heating with heat gun. Keep gun moving slowly. Paper will begin to brown in places that have been painted with juice.

Continue heating juice until paper has browned to your satisfaction.

An example of a finished book layout using juice burned papers.

3 Comments on “Lemon Juice Burning”

  • Rosie Rowe says:

    Thanks so much for this! I actually cut the top half inch of a lemon and smooshed it around my torn edges. I made me a Pirates’ Treasure Map and it looks fab!
    Love your site and I’ve linked to GMS in my blog post! You’re an inspiration and your video tutorials are just great! If you want to see what I did, here’s the said post!

    http://alteredartandstuff.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/my-last-cj-entry-i-hope/

  • rho says:

    THIS WORKS! omg, it’s so great! i was really skeptical about it, i mean, lemon juice? and once again everyone thought i was crazy when i got everything together and tried to explain what i was going to do. but they were very impressed when they saw it really worked! and so was i! lol i used the technique to age and distress a map i made. turned out great!

  • sparkleface says:

    I HAVE to try this, great tip!!!!

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