Start by brushing watered-down Burnt Umber Acrylic Ink across your watercolour paper to create an aged appearance. You can also use coffee.

Allow the colour to vary naturally across the surface, creating lighter and darker areas for a faded effect. Leave the paper to dry completely before moving on to the next step.

Carefully burn the edges of the dry paper to give your fantasy map an old, worn appearance - alternatively, tear or darken the edges with ink if you’d prefer not to use a flame.

If burning the edges, work on a fire-safe surface and in a well-ventilated area, keep water nearby and take appropriate safety precautions.

Sprinkle rice onto your prepared paper to create the shapes of your fantasy landmasses. Arrange the rice into continents, islands or smaller scattered landmasses, depending on how you’d like your world to look. Experiment with the placement of the rice to create interesting coastlines, channels, and gaps between the landmasses.

Once you’re happy with the layout, use a dip pen and Acrylic Ink to carefully trace around the rice. You can also use a regular pen, but we thought an old school dip pen and ink fit the theme!

Follow the edges of the rice to create natural curves, inlets and irregular coastlines. The more detail you add in, the more interesting your map will be.

Once the ink has dried, remove the rice to reveal the outlines of your fantasy map.

This is the time to let your imagination run wild!

Use your dip pen and ink to draw mountains, forests, trees, villages, ship and other landmarks across your map. Add small symbols and decorative details to give different areas of your fantasy world their own character – “Here be dragons”!

Think of unique names for your towns, villages, islands, mountains and other important locations that will suit the fantasy world you’ve created. Write the names onto your map – test out different writing styles to see which one suits your fantasy world.

Choose areas of your map to highlight with Imitation Gold Leaf, such as coastlines, towns, a compass rose or other decorative features. Use Leafing Size to adhere the gold leaf to your chosen areas.

Keep the gold details subtle or make them more elaborate, all depending on the look you want to achieve.

Your handmade fantasy map is complete! Experiment with different rice arrangements, colours and illustrations to create a completely unique world of your own.