Handmade Paper

Handmade paper is a great way for kids to get a hands-on experience with recycling. To get started you will need a blender, sponges, buckets, a tub or tray, some screen, and an embroidery hoop or frame to stretch the screen.

For paper, collect old flyers, statements and tissue and construction papers.  Avoid any coated papers as they will not pulp. Newspapers pulp easily but make a muddy paper due to all the print so are also best avoided.  Shredded bills and statements work well for a base. Add to this with tissue paper, construction paper or colored flyer paper to provide color. It is helpful to sort the papers by color so they can be blended and made into pulp in color groups.

Start by shredding the paper or having children tear it into small pieces, about the size of a finger nail. (Avoid putting tissue paper in a shredder as it may jam.)  Soak the paper pieces in a bucket of warm water to prepare for beating into pulp in the blender. The key to blending paper is patience and using plenty of water. Fill the blender half full with water, then add a handful of the soaking paper.  It is best for the blender to err on the side of more water and less paper.  Begin on the lowest setting and blend the paper until it begins to look like a smoothie. Pour the newly blended paper pulp into a low tub or tray, continue blending until you have collected a few inches of the liquid pulp.

Once you have a tub of paper pulp, add a bit more water so that the pulp can easily float around lightly in the bath. It should feel thin and watery when you run a hand through it. Stretch your screen over an embroidery hoop to form your paper mold. If you prefer a square shape, the screen can be stapled to the top of a simple wood frame. This becomes the paper mold.

Before dipping your first sheet of paper, collect pieces of fabric, paper towels or newsprint to serve as a couch sheet or surface to create the paper. In the studio we use newspapers. To dip your paper, hold the mold with the screen side up, like the top of a drum. You will slide the screen into the tub of pulp, then lift slowly to the surface, keeping the screen level with the surface of the water. Once out of the water, allow the water to drip out of the pulp over the tub.

The next step is to carefully flip the sheet of paper onto a couch sheet and to continue to remove water by dabbing (don't rub) the back of the screen with a sponge. Repeat this until little water remains and then lift the screen leaving the new paper on the couch sheet. You can place a new sheet of newsprint or paper towel on top of this and use it for a new paper and continue in this way to make many sheets.  

At the end of your paper making session, carefully spread the sheets apart and leave on their couch sheets in the sun or on a line to dry. Paper can also be carefully ironed on a no steam setting under a piece of cotton fabric if quick drying is necessary. Once dry, the handmade paper is carefully peeled from the couch sheets to reveal the newly created sheet.

Handmade paper makes lovely notecards, collages and a great surface for water-colors (a good opportunity to try your newly made liquid watercolors from an earlier article).

For added variations, children can add flower petals or leaves to the pulp and let these become part of the paper.  Having two tubs of different colored pulps also allows for experimentation with multicolored papers. When paper is wet it can be layered on a large couch sheet to create large pieces and group creations.