NEW Challenge - paper making

I love paper and have been wanting for ages to make my own. Two Fridays ago when my 8-year old couldn't find anyone to play with, I suggested we try making paper. We tore used copy paper, partially used napkins, some old envelopes, dried rose petals and paper towels into the blender, added about 3 times as much water and mixed it all into a pulp. Then we poured the paper pulp into a basin that was about half-filled with water, dunked our window-screen-covered frame under the pulp and let it rise to the surface. On a few of them, we laid some red rose petals for decoration. We let the water drain off and used a sponge to soak up more water while at the same time pressing down the paper. We stacked up our 5x7 pieces of paper with white felt in between them to soak up more of the water.





I suppose we should have drained them more since they were pretty wavy in the morning after I had left them out to dry. A little spraying with water and some heat from the iron fixed that mostly. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any photos, but there are plenty of tutorials online.

I made a second batch by myself a few days later, this time adding some yellow rose petals and some other dried seeds and leaves to the mixture.



In essence, paper making is not hard to do, but I would have to learn and experiment a lot more to get a consistently good piece of paper. The ones I made would not be good for drawing or writing. These do have a lovely feel, a homemade look and a nice grainy texture, and I'll enjoy using them for cards, tags, bookmarks or covers for books. Maybe I'll do some embroidery on them first; that would be a neat way to add more texture.

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