More Paper Experiments - Paper No 0008

My Dad came to stay for the weekend a while back, and it turns out he's always wanted to make paper, but wasn't sure how to start. So, we had a go. We started with some white cotton? dry pulp fibres, and pulled a few sheets. I don't think he'd realised quite how easy it is to make paper! We then carried on, and added some of my yellow recycled paper - coarsely shredded, then added some lint from the tumble dryer, them added some glitter, and so on. As we were nearing the end of the stack of couching sheets, we decided to add some of my white recycled paper to finish off. Unfortunately, my food mixer died after about 3 seconds, so, what the hell, throw the very coarse white stuff in too! The results are shown below.

My dad went home with all these sheets, and I'm yet to see what he's to do with them. Now, Dad lives in St Ives in Cornwall, and is friends with many of the artists down there, particularly Roy Ray and Jenny Devereux, two of the many well known artists working with paper in St Ives. Check out their websites.

I also understand dad went straight to Truro, and bought all the equipment to make more paper himself. So, watch this space.

Hanging Basket Liner - Paper No 0007

OK, here I was, browsing through the local garden centre when i saw a stack of hanging basket liner. These are the ones made of a papier mache kind of material. They are very cheap, and the quality of the material isn't very high, but pulped in the blender, I experimented making the sheets below. Techniques included layering with other papers, pressing on bubble wrap, etc. Not the best paper, but an interesting exercise following on from my Peat Pot papers!

Paper No. 0007 8x6 in (20x15 cm)

Bank Note Paper - Paper No. 0006

At a local auction recently, I bought £1,500's worth of shredded £20 notes (for the sum of £20). The auctioneer looked at me as though I was mad!

I had the idea, of course, to use them as inclusions in sheets of my handmade paper. Using cotton linters as the base, and just a tiny handfull of the scraps of notes, I produced these lovely soft sheets.

Heres a view of the stack of the dozen or so sheets I've pulled so far. And a single sheet

And a close up of a part of the sheet. I'm now going to use these sheets as end papers for my Bank-Note-Books. See here for how you can swap something for one of these Bank-Note-Books, 2 or 3 sheets of my papers, and if you want, a tiny amount of these bank note scraps.

Peat-Pot-Paper - Paper No. 0005

Over the weekend, I was clearing out the shed and found a pack of unused peat pots. I noticed that they are cast in a shape, so decided to have a go at making paper with them. So, 2 peat pots torn up in the blender at a time, and 3 blender fulls in the tub. This let me pull 4 sheets, before i had to put another blender full of pulp in tub. The sheets formed very easily, and also couched very easily. They dry quite smooth, and appear reasonably strong.

Next step is to make patterns with seeds in. I'm thinking big sunflower seeds in patterns sandwiched between 2 sheets. Watch this space.

Paper No. 0005 8x6 in (20x15 cm)

Curry Paper - Good Enough to Eat? - Paper No. 0004

Well maybe not exactly curry, but the inclusions in this paper are paprika and oregano. Straight out of the kitchen cubboard, and well mixed in the pulp. The paprika leaves delightful orangey red flecks in the paper. There is a very slight paprika smell to the paper too! Good enough to eat?

Paper No 0004 8x6 in (20x15 cm) Paprika & Oregano Inclusions.

Detail of Paper No. 0004 showing the flecks in the paper from the paprika.

.

Sawdust Inclusions Paper - Paper No. 0003

OK, today I made 3 pairs of timber boards to use as book covers at some stage. I've no idea what the wood is, I picked up a big plank about 8mm thick from local reclamation yard. It's a very dark wood, with light stripes, and it chips a bit like fibreglass. My hands were cut to shreds before I'd tamed it! Anyway, once finished, I swept all the sawdust and chips up, and made some more pulp as Paper No 0001, and added a large lot of the sawdust. This is the finished sheet.

Paper No. 0003 8x6 in (20x15 cm) Sawdust Inclusions.

And here is the finished stack of some of the dozen or so sheets I made.

My First Coloured Paper - Paper No. 0002

I sorted some old utility bills either printed on yellow / orange paper, or with a lot of yellow / orange print. Shredded as below.

I pulled 20 or so sheets again. These were a lot faster to make, but i was limited by the Number of felts i had.

Paper No. 0002 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

My First Attempt at Making Paper - Paper No 0001

, My first sheets using a basic papermaking kit from Ebay and a basic document shredder from Staples. I shredded a pile of regular utility bills as below.

This is one of the first batch of 20 or so papers i produced in a couple of hours.

Paper No. 0001 8x6 in (20x15 cm) No Additives

The papers are of varying weights, due to both experimentaton, and lack of knowledge. Couched on old 'as found' felt sheets, and pressed between 2 boards using woodworkers ratchet clamps.