Bank-Note-Books - A Variation

Here I've Japanese Stab Bound a set of 3 Bank-Note-Books. The banknotes are, unusually, identical in size, and with the colours, I think they make a fabulous set.

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.

My First Overseas Swap

I completed my second swap today, and my first overseas swap. With Judy from Iowa, I swapped one of my BankNoteBooks and 3 sheets of my handmade paper: for only Judy's second ever handmade book. I'm touched, and its delightful. Its Japanese stab bound, and made from an old macoroni package, with pages cut and folded at different sizes from (I'm assuming) a brown paper bag, with the stitching incorporating bead work. I'm extremely pleased with this swap.

My Home Made Press

I thought you might like to see a picture of my very sturdy home made press. I use this for pressing wet posts of papers, and (when dry) for pressing signatures, etc, for my books. This form of construction is extremely strong, and you get a huge amount of pressuer from even the smallest 1.5 Ton bottle jack that i'm using. A very useful tool. I built it to suit the materials to hand, but it will take A4 sheets if needs be.

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)

Pulp Painting Experiments with 3 Pulps

For this experiment, the 3 pulps used were: The pulps i used for Paper No 0001 & Paper No 0002, and a pulp made from a thin black paper that came as packing in a shoe box. The pulps were blended in the mixer in the usual way, and decanted into saucepans. Then, all of these papers were made using a turkey baster, sucking up the pulp, and laying directly on the mould, with the deckle in place. The hardest part about making these papers was to ensure even pulp thickness. The water was slow to drain too, so that didn't help, and it was mainly guess work, as this was my first attempt at these type of papers. Handy tip is to have a glass of water nearby to suck into the baster between pulps to clear out the remains of the previous colour pulp.

Sunburst. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

Beach Through Barred Window. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

Weave. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

Parallel. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

Blocks. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives Circles. 8x6in (20x15cm) No Additives

2 Handmade Paper Purchases

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Heres a couple of images of some framed papers i bought on Ebay. I've taken them from their frames to have a better look at them. .

This sheet has gold leaf? in it, is very soft, and quite thick..

This sheet has threads and silver foil in it, appears to be sized, and is partially translucent.

Both are delightful examples of the papermaking art.

Does anyone recognise them?.

My First Swap

. I completed my first swap today. With Lubna - see Looby Ruby. I swapped one of my BankNoteBooks and 3 sheets of my handmade paper:

for one of Lubna's delightfull stab bound Mini Books 4.5 x 3 in (11x7.5 cm)

If anyone else is interested in a small swap see here for details.

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Wooden Boards for Book Covers

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These are the 3 sets of boards that I was making when I used the sawdust as inclusions in Paper No. 0003. If anyone can identify the wood, please add a comment and let me know. I finished the wood with boiled linseed oil, and nothing else. I'll get round to making the rest of the book some day soon.... The boards are 6.5x8.5 in (16x22 cm).

Simple Leather Bound Exercise - Book No. 0003

. So, heres a quick example of a leather bound book. 6 signatures made from cheap shop boght staple bound note book.

Book No. 0003 4x7 in (10x17 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.

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2 More Experimental Sheets

OK, tonight I made these 2 papers. Both experimental. The first one has silk fibres (all the same fibres) sandwiched between 2 sheets, and the second sheet has various different fibres sandwiched. Again, as 'Another Experiment', I should have left it and pressed as a single sheet, without the sandwich.

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.

Another Experiment

. I cut up a pair of jeans, hoping to make some denim paper. Unfortunately, after 20 minutes of blending I realised, this wasn't going to work, and that the denim needed cooking first. But, with the small amount I had blended, I made this sheet by sandwiching the denim pulp between 2 sheets of paper made as Paper No 0001. But, in hindsight, i should have pressed it on a single sheet. This image is of the same sheet, one back lit, the other using front light from camera flash.

A Single Sheet Experiment

Just a quick experiment with a spoilt sheet while making Paper No 0001 Applied coffee granules, and i ran my sons Thomas train over the paper, which is how i got the tram lines across it!

Bank-Note-Book - Book No. 0002

Contact me: blog[at]sgwilkinson[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk

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25th March 2009 - UPDATE: I am now making these Bank-Note Books with endpapers made with my handmade paper that use shredded £20 bank notes as inclusions. See here for details.

So, if we swap, you'll receive a Bank-Note-Book with bank note paper endpapers, 3 different sheets of other of my papers, and a tiny amount of shredded bank notes for you to experiment with.

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Today I made 8 little single signature pamphlet note books from some old banknotes i've had for some time.

Book No. 0002 circa 2.5x2.5 in (7x7cm) 24 to 32 relued pages.

I've got an idea in my head that i could swap these with anyone who is interested in either putting a link to my blog on their page, or sending me a sheet of paper or a simple pamphlet that they have personally made. To that end, I've bought job lot of uncirculated banknotes from Ebay to make them from. If anyone is interested, email me at email at sgwilkinson.freeserve.co.uk for a chat about what we can swap. If we do a swap, i'll publish info, and photos of items swapped.

My First Book - Book No. 0001

With the 2 papers I'd produced, it was time to try a book. I used 2 thicker sheets of the Paper No. 0001 for each of the 5 signatures, and used a folded sheet of Paper No. 0002 for both the covers. Sewn coptic stitch, and with a thin strip of hand painted Japanese Washi paper as a front label, i ended up with this as a first attempt.

Book No. 0001 4x6 in (10x15 cm)

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.