How to Make Paper

Member

By Amy Rose
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (5 Ratings)

Make Paper

Once you get a feel for how to make paper, you can advance to making paper from recycled denim, straw, and other eco-friendly materials. You can even imbed viable garden seeds, such as wildflower seeds, into your handmade paper. If you turn flower seed paper into wedding or party invitations, the recipients automatically have pre-party party favors - they can plant your handmade paper right into the ground. You can also color and decorate your handmade paper with your own garden flowers and herbs.

Here's a starter homemade paper recipe that an editor I work for shared with me for use on e-how. It uses recycled materials so you can gain experience in how to make paper, and this recipe also allows you to add viable seeds or herbs and flowers if you choose.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Old, empty wooden picture frame or embroidery frame
Window screening
Large bag of recycled mostly white envelopes from bills and junk mail, and/or mostly white trashed copy paper.
Clothes pins
White felt or flannel
Optional: Fresh herbs, flowers, viable wildflower seeds, and previously pressed flowers or leaves, & liquid starch
Your bathtub or a tub large enough to submerge your picture or embroidery frame.
Blender or food processor

Step 1

Make the paper making mold. An old, empty, wooden picture frame or embroidery frame at home or at a flea market will work fine for paper making. The inside of the frame should be the size and shape of the paper you want to make.
Step 2

Cut a piece of window or door screen, stretch it over the frame as tight as possible and staple it to the frame. This is your paper making mold.
Step 3

Gather the main paper making ingredients. Collect a large bag full of mostly white, recycled envelopes from invitations, bills and junk mail.
Step 4

Marigolds

Gather the natural plant or seed embellishments. If decorating with your own garden plants, collect fresh herbs, greens or flowers such as marigolds. If adding a pressed plant as a final embellishment, find the one you want. Get a packet of wildflower seeds.
Step 5

Make the paper pulp. Fill a blender or food processor about half full of the recycled paper ripped into bits.
Step 6

Fill it with warm water and blend until the mixture looks very smooth and contains no paper flakes. This is your homemade paper "dough."
Step 7

After processing the homemade paper mixture in the blender, add your fresh plant ingredients a few bits at a time or, in the case of marigolds, one flower head at a time, until you like the appearance.
Step 8

Add a few flower seeds if choosing to make plantable handmade paper.
Step 9

Fill half-full of water a tub big enough to completely immerse the mold.
Step 10

Add about three blenders full of the pulp, depending on how large your mold is and how thick you want the paper you're making to be.
Step 11

Stir the pulp, place the mold into the tub, screen-side-up, and move it around until an even amount of pulp settles onto the screen. Your homemade paper is almost complete.
Step 12

Lift the mold out of the water, wait for it to stop dripping, and ease it onto a piece of white felt or flannel fabric so the new, wet, handmade paper is on the fabric and the mold can eventually be lifted off.
Step 13

At this point, sponge away as much liquid as possible. This is important when making your own paper.
Step 14

Slowly and gently lift off the mold, allowing the wet paper to stay on the fabric. If the paper sticks to the mold, sponge off more water. Remove any bubbles and continue to press out more water by placing the fabric with paper in a dry bathtub and pressing with a smooth, hard surface such as a cookie sheet
Step 15

Hang with clothespins to dry or lay on a drying rack.
Step 16

When dry, peel your new paper from the fabric.

Optional: When the your handmade paper is formed, but still wet, lay a pressed flower or leaf onto it and press to embed it into the paper.