How To Make Delightful Hand Made Paper

Although some are daunted at the thought of making hand-made paper, it is actually very easy to do and creates the most delightful effects. Most of the items you will need to create your own paper can be found in the kitchen, and the finished product can be used for card making, wall hangings or decoupage. I even, (after seeing something similar on T.V.) cast one of my own bras with paper pulp, left it to harden and then sprayed it in the most delightful colors and metallic paints. It looks like a work of art! So, not only can you use hand-made paper for the obvious things, you can also use more unorthodox methods of utilizing it’s unique qualities.

In sheets, it can be used to cover boxes or books and every time you make a piece of your own paper, it is completely unique! When you get into this craft and see the beautiful and unusual effects that can be achieved, you will be completely hooked.

So, what do we use to produce our own paper? Well, torn or shredded photocopying paper is the most common material to pulp, although ANY paper can be used actually. Sometimes I experiment with other types of paper, such as toilet roll, tissue paper or colored paper. If you live near an office, perhaps you could ask them if you could recycle their shredded paper? If not, then appropriate paper can always be found around the house. To follow are the basic instructions for making your own paper.

You will need:

8 to 10 sheets of A4 paper 
Large mixing bowl (or if you are making large amounts, a bucket) 
Washing up bowl 
Blender or hand blender 
Fine gauge wire mesh 
J cloths 
A small sponge 
2 thick towels

1. Tear the paper into small pieces, or if you are using shredded paper use it as it is. Place in a large bowl and pour over boiling water. Make sure there is plenty of water covering the paper and leave to soak for a few hours, until the water has cooled down. It is not strictly necessary to do this, but it easier for the blender to pulp the paper if you leave it to soak for a while. Blend to a fine pulp with a hand blender, or if you have a tower type blender pour both paper and water into it a bit at a time and blend.

2. Fold your towels and place on a work surface and place a J cloth on top. This is where you will form your sheets of paper.

3. Fill a washing up bowl about a third full of water. Add a few handfuls of the pulp and swish it around. Immerse the wire mesh and pull up out of the water picking up the pulp in the mesh. Let it drain slightly till all the water has run through.

4. Turn the mesh over (pulp side down) on to the J cloth. Using the sponge, soak up the excess water on the wrong back of the mesh by dabbing fairly firmly on the back of the mesh. Then slowly and carefully lift the mesh; the paper should stay on the cloth. You can leave your paper as it is, or you can carry on adding as many layers as needed to make the thickness of paper required. Leave to dry in a warm room.

5. If you are making a pile of sheets, you can lay another J cloth over the paper and layer your paper up like this. When you have about 6-8 layers, you can then place the whole ‘sandwich’ between some heavy books to press.

Adding color and texture with natural materials.

If you would like to color or even texture your paper, without resorting to the artificial color produced by using tinted paper for your pulp, you can color it using natural materials. When you have decided what you are going to use to color and/or texture the paper, you add the material (s) to the water and swirl around just before you immerse your mesh. Obviously the color will depend on the material used - and the amount, but there are many ways you can add color or texture;

Tea leaves - depending on how many you use, will determine the finished look and feel of your paper.

Onion skins - which can either be crumbled up and added to your paper pulp, or boiled to give you colored ‘juice’ which can be added to your pulp.

Berries - blackberries or other berries can be sieved and the resulting liquid added to the water.

Beetroot - can give your paper a reddy pink tinge, although quite a lot of the color will be lost upon evaporation.

You can also make exquisite papers by trapping things like petals, leaves, doilies etc. between layers of paper. Make a very fine layer by only adding a small amount of pulp to the water. Place your natural materials on the paper and add further layers, entrapping the materials.

Another method for adding texture is to trap pieces of string between layers in swirls or lines. Or leave the ends of string showing at the edges of the paper and when it is dry, pull up the string, tearing only the top layer of paper.

Are you itching to start making your own exquisite paper yet? If so, then here are the instructions for making some cards to start you off. Obviously card making is one of the more basic things you can do, but once you get into making your own paper you will carry on to make your own unique projects.

These greetings cards use sheets of your own hand made paper folded in half down the center . You have to make this base paper quite thick to enable it to stand up and take the weight of the decoration.

Then separate shapes are made by actually cutting the mesh into shapes and casting the paper straight into shapes on the J cloth.

Make the color or texture of pulp required and cut your aluminum mesh into different shapes. Try hearts, wiggly lines or long thin pieces. Alternatively you can make squares to stick on the front of the cards with a flower head or some other decoration. Make the shapes and leave to dry as already instructed. When all your paper is dry, stick the required shapes into place on the front of the card, and what I am fond of doing is lighting a candle and (carefully) scorching round the edges.