How To Make Paper Look Old and Create Direct Mail Guaranteed to Get Opened

Marketing and advertising has been increasingly over produced for many years. The mass production of media means that consumers give less time and attention to advertisements. The supply of marketing is greater than the demand given to it and the bubble is bursting on ineffective forms of communication. Total customization or the ability to create a unique experience for each and every consumer is the marketers new goal.

Today, only hand-crafted, highly-customizable printed materials consistently get noticed. The new art of printing begins with a creative idea, is achieved through a unique process and shipped with a personal touch that connects to people on a human to human level.

The creation of an aged mailer offers a perfect opportunity to create a real connection to the past and revisit a time in printing when the artisan was more powerful than the machine. An aged mailer offers you the ability to touch people's senses and send them back in time.

Just think about all the times we hear stories in the media of letters delivering decades later? People emotionally connect with the past and the dated look of an aged mailer immediately makes one think of the old and forgotten times.

As a fellow print chef, you can begin aging paper right away and rekindle the past with uniquely, hand-crafted printed materials.  To create this highly-customizable printed item right in your own kitchen, here are a few quick and easy to follow steps:

1. Print your message on the paper before beginning the process
2. Pre-heat an oven to 200 degrees
3. Soak paper in tea, coffee or vinegar and plan on your mailer still smelling like your ingredient of choice (If aging an envelope, while soaking, carefully open flat at the sealed areas as glue will now be ineffective)
4. Remove from liquid and sprinkle coffee or tea grinds on paper
5. Rub in grinds to create an assortment of random stains
6. With a dry towel or cloth, carefully pat the wet paper to remove any excess liquid and brush off remaining grinds
7. Place the paper on an oven proof pan 
8. Put pan in oven and frequently check paper every minute to test for dryness and ensure the paper does not stick to the pan
9. Remove as soon as dry and let cool (once cool, if aging an envelope, re-seal with a glue stick)

Genetically Modified

Over the past few years, there has been a growing popularity in organic food. This has stemmed from the increased knowledge the public has on how our food is made and where it comes from.  One of the primary reasons for the push to organic options is the food industry's production of genetically engineered foods.

Genetic engineering takes the genetics of one organism and puts it into something else. With genetically engineered food, animals and plants are transformed primarily so we can produce more food faster and cheaper. Genetically engineering food has become so prevalent that the majority of processed foods in a grocery store contain genetically engineered ingredients (http://centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall7.cfm).

There are many who argue that genetic engineering has adverse effects on humans, animals, wildlife and the environment. A recent documentary, Food Inc. (http://www.foodincmovie.com/), focuses on some of these concerns. While there are many concerns, in a world where people starve, is the ability to bring more food to market at a cheaper price a bad thing? It is a moral paradox and I suggest you do a little personal research to come to your own conclusions.

A similar genetic engineering concern has also been recently publicized in the commercial paper industry (Forests Of ArborGen Genetically Modified Trees OK'd For U.S. South).  For years, paper companies have been planting forests of trees to be used for commercial paper. These forests help protect the conservation of natural forests.

Eucalyptus trees are being planted as they grow faster and produce high-quality pulp but they only do well in warm year-round climates such as Florida.  Genetic engineering has allowing the company ArborGen to change the genetic makeup of these trees by modifying them to withstand freezing temperatures which will enable their growth in states north of Florida.  The concern is that these genetically engineered trees will invade the natural ecosystem. That could cause a number of problems. ArborGen is confident they can control the trees but questions still remain.

Again, as with genetically modified food, this creates a moral paradox. We know trees are good as they take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Is it bad that paper companies are looking for more ways to increase the number of trees put in the ground? From the paper company's perspective, the alternative is to use trees from natural forests but no one wants that. In the effort to produce more trees and paper though, one has to be concerned about genes being transfered from a genetically engineered tree to a natural tree especially when it is believed by some that the eucalyptus tree uses more groundwater (lowering the human supply) and could be more flammable.

There are strong arguments for and against genetic engineering which creates the dilemma. Perhaps in a few years we'll have conclusive knowledge to know whether genetically engineering our food and our trees was a good or bad idea.