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Paper Making
STAMPCRAZY@delphi.com
EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED
Blender or food processor
1/3 & 1 Cup measuring cups
Finely torn paper
Water
Container for the beaten pulp (called slurry) larger than paper mold
Paper mold-screen attached to a frame an da deckle "fence" to hold pulp in place
Couching (pronounced "smooching") container
Couch sheets or a Cover sheet
Sponge
Paper Towels
Newspapers
Old Towels
Optional materials include linters, paper sizing, iron, paper press, add-ins/inclusions
A fairly inexpensive screen and deckle can be made out of stretcher frames which any hobby or fabric store will carry. Two sets of each size will be needed. The one that some of you will be using in class and which I made is out of 11" by 8" stretcher frames. Plastic canvas used for counted cross stitch or window screening is stapled on the top of the frame. I then stapled velcro tape across the sides of the two frames to keep them together. These screens and deckles can be purchased at the craft stores and Hastings carries a small paper making kit for kids.
Cotton linters can be added to the mixture to function as a binding agent. These can be purchased at the craft stores as well. The cotton linters are made from the short fibers which cling to the cotton boll after the long fibers have been removed for the cloth making. The linters come in sheets or in prepackaged finely cut slices. I bought a 2 pound package of sheets called Paper Anew" at Hobby Lobby for the outrageous price of $11.95, BUT, it is lasting a long time. These can be ordered from paper stores for a cheaper price, I am told.
1. Place the frame and deckle in a container of water that is large enough for you to get your hands on both sides of the frames and deep enough for the frame to be covered in water. I place a sheet of pellon inbetween the two frames to help facilitate removing the newly made piece of paper from the screen.
2. Have a couching pan (large enough to hold the frame and deckle) ready to use.
3. Fold up an old towel or a stack of dry newspapers and have ready
4. Tear up your paper into small pieces. The rule of thumb for the amount of paper is 1" inch longer and 1" wider than your mold. I've found that using !/3 Cup of finely packed paper will be about right in most instances.
5. Pour the torn paper into the blender and add one cup water. Blend for about 1 minute.
6. Pour the blended pulp, now called slurry, onto the deckle. Spread the pulp evenly by swishing your fingers in the water or using a spatula, fork, or any handy utensil. I've found that using a "hair lifter" to break up the pulp and get a more even texture to the paper works very well. (See the sections on "Paper Addins" and "Adding Color to your Paper" for more information on this step.)
7. Raise the deckle and frame straight out of the water and place on a raised edge cookie sheet, any container larger than the deckle and which will hold water.
8. Lift the deckle and carefully cover your slurry with a cover sheet or couch sheet. If using a sponge, press firmly on top of the cover screen. Press the sponge, then wring it out and press again. Continue this process until you cannot wring out any more water from the sponge.
9. If using couch sheets, cover the slurry with the couch sheet and press down firmly. Reapply dry couch sheets and repeat the process.
10. Carefully remove the cover sheet or couch sheets, peeling back veryslowly from a corner. If the paper sticks, try another corner, or continue removing water or couching and try again.
11. Pick up the papermaking frame and turn it over. Place it on a dry couch sheet or paper towel which is laying on an old towel, or stack of newspapers or any absorbant surface. If you used a piece of pellon under the slurry, just pick this up and place it on the towel or newspaper.
12. Press a sponge down hard all over the surface. Wring out the sponge and press again to remove as much water as possible. Or if you are using the couch sheets repeat step 9.
The blender or food processor bowl MUST NOT BE washed out in the sink. Swish the container around in the frame/deckle container until all traces of pulp are gone. The water in the frame/deckle container MUST be strained or thrown outside.
DO NOT THROW THIS WATER DOWN YOUR KITCHEN SINK!!!
Our stamp club will be doing handmade paper this weekend and I made up some pulp to play around with before then. I got some good ideas from Angelhrt's tips & techniques and I thought I'd share a bit. I've done the whole paper making routine several times and wanted something a little different this time. I wanted dark, rich colors instead of the wimpy, washed out stuff I usually end up with I started with blue. I tore up some dark blue construction paper and put it in boiling water for a few minutes then into the blender and blended it smooth. Boiling it for a few minutes first seemsto help it break up better in the blender. You don't get any unblended chunks. Then I added a little bit of linter paper and a lot of plain white paper. It was too light so I put a big squirt of metallic blue acrylic paint and blended it up. Wow! Dark blue with just a hint of a metallic cast.
I made up several sheets of blue then I tossed in a handfull of silver wild fiber. It stayed chunkier than I thought it would, but it still looked great. This paper is screaming "do me celestial!". Next I thought I'd try the dryer lint thing. I've never done this one before. I found some dark teal green lint and can't figure out where it came from since no one in my family owns anything that color. Oh well. I blended up a little bit of linter and a lot of plain white paper and added a handfull of the dryer lint. It lightened up quite a bit but it really turned out neat looking. Sort of...hairy looking. Which, by the way, was an issue before I started. I couldn't decide if I was supposed to leave the hair in the lint or try to pick it out. The dog hair doesn't bother me, the cat hair suits me just fine, it's those "OTHER" hairs that completely gross me out. You know the ones I'm talking about. I put some white pulp in one of those ketchup squeezie bottles with copper metallic paint and added water and used this to squirt little swirls and lines and dots onto the screen before I couched the dryer lint paper. I liked that...I'll do more of that tomorrow. I'm also going to add some interference type paints tomorrow. And I'm going to lay a sheet of wild fiber paper that I've already made up on the screen and dip it into the pulp to make paper on top of paper...does that make sense?
A couple weekends ago I tried to marble my own paper. I've just started to get over the disappointment of it to write. What I wanted was to be able to marble paper like the expensive stuff that you buy at places like Paper Zone. It has really bold green, yellow, red, etc in it all swirled and beautiful. I had my vat of water, put tons of borax in it and then started applying just ordinary acrylic paint to the surface. IT DISAPPEARED!!! I'm not joking! It just disappeared. Swirled around a little bit and growing smaller until it just disappeared. This continued for a while and then finally I started to see a very FAINT film on the water, so I laid my paper down wondering if would stick. NOPE!!! I kept applying paint and applying paint and applying paint. It would either disappear on me or make just a very faint film. POUTING!!!!! I wanted bold streaks of paint. Please help!! Does anyone know how to marble paper and get "anywhere near to store bought effect"????? I'm trying to stay away from recipes that called for weird stuff that I can never find. I saw some marbling recipes that called for stuff I've never even heard of. Any ideas??? Also, I should know why the paint disappeared like it did. I'm a science major in college and my chemistry teacher would laugh at me if I told him I was confused about this??? Does anyone know why it would just disappear. Was kinda entertaining to watch this but it grew weary after a while. Any help would be appreciated.
Whoever "Kari" is, tell her she put TOO MUCH Borax in her water. The Borax will eat up the paint. Instead of adding paint, she should have dumped out at least half the water and replaced it with clear water, let that set until all the oxygen disappears from it-at least an hour-then put in the paint. She doesn't need all that much Borax and it will work like a dream...
I started with a mix of paper grocery bag, newspaper and yellow swim club newsletter, revived it with more bag, then more newsletter, then I scooped out a pile of the leftover and did a bit of papercasting, then I added some some newspaper, some pink cardstock that was a project that failed, and some leftover plain white pulp from paper casting that had been in the refridgerator for months and did some more, then I added the colorful cover of a catalog (newsprint) and finished up for the day, and got one more paper casting outta the last bit before I poured the tub down the toilet. it was a great lot of fun! it takes a long time to make a small stack of paper though, one half sheet at a time..
My friend gave me these directions, any paper recipe pulp, she says she uses paper linter sheets and a blender. Then she adds any of the things below. I haven't tried any of this myself, just got these notes yesterday afternoon.
Add 1 teaspoon curry powder to a mixture of paper pulp. Deeper color if you add more curry powder, add dried flower petals to mixture for a different look.
To make grey contempo paper tear pieces of black paper to blend with pulp. In the last blending add some pieces of brown paper bag and two sheets of plain white paper.
To make raspberry paper add a small piece of red paper to tint the pulp. Cut a skein of pink and red embroidery floss into 2" sections and add to pulp in vat. Cut small pieces of silver metalic braid and stir into pulp mixture.
Make pink paper by adding torn pieces of red paper to cotton linter paper before blending. Color intensifies by adding more red. Lighten color by mixing batches of white pulp, you can also add dried flowers to this.
Just a quick tip for making paper that has, for example, an oval opening in the center: Cut a "shape-insert" from a piece of (non-porus, with repositional adhesive on back) **contact paper or **shelf liner to the size/shape that you want the opening on your finished paper to be, and stick it down on your screen in the desired position on the screen, before adding the slurry (the paperpulp and water.) Now, when you pour the slurry into your screen, the water will drain through the screen and pull the pulp away from the plastic shape, leaving the desired opening in the center of your finished paper. AFTER pressing as MUCH water as you can from your new sheet of paper and AFTER releasing it from the screen, you can remove the shape-insert. TAA-DAAAA! It's magic!! Another Idea for shaped paper: Cut a "negative" shape from the same plastic. Remember how you fold a piece of paper to cut out a perfect heart in one cut? The remaining outside scrap that you usually throw away becomes the shape template for a heart shaped piece of paper. I have also made templates from Shrink Plastic (DON'T shrink), clean styrofoam meat trays and even fun foam for large-shapes ONLY, cuz you need to hold it in place. It isn't brain-surgery, but, it works great and they store easily in a folder.
Seriously. If you've got a blender, you can make paper. Pull together yesterday's junk mail. Maybe all of last week's. Rip it into little pieces and soak it in a bowl of water. When it gets nice and yucky, dump it in the blender and blend it until it's paste. Pull out handfuls of the gunk and squeeze out the water, as much water as you can get out. Then smooth it onto one of your screens (I use the screen on the patio door, putting it between the screen and the glass, less bugs get in it that way) and let it dry. When it's dry, carefully pull it off the screen. Voila! Paper. Lots of variations in what you can put into the paper, and other methods using the paper kits. Oh and even with this basic (free) method, you can mist the paper and iron it smoother if you want. With paper making, I think you can spend as little or as much as you want.
Sometimes instead of a mould and deckle, I've used different sizes of plastic embroidery hoops. You use that soft plastic like window screen and just fasten it in your hoops like you would fabric, works great except you have round paper
Color is extracted from plants by simmering, preferably in soft rainwater. If this is not available then soften tap water with a water softener. Extracting dye cane take anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the plant and the part of the plant you are using. As a general rule, tender sections, such as flowers and leaves, need less simmering and will become dull if cooked too long, while tougher sections, such as hard berries and barks, may need pounding beforehand and longer cooking to draw out their color. Plant dying is more of an adventure than a science and it is impossible to chart exactly the course a color will take, since plants vary with te season and the locality. A considerable amount is needed to get dyes, and the amount varies with each plant, but 4 oz. of plant material to 1 oz. of wool (paper) is a useful guideline.
To extract dye, cover withe plant material with soft water and keep topping it up with more hot water as it simmers. When the dye has been extracted, strain off the liquor. You can throw the plant remains onto a compost heap. Let the liquor cool to hand-heat before you add the wool (paper).
Dyes can be stored for future use in tightly sealed jars and kept in a refrigerator.
Not many plants can dye direct, ie without a mordant to fix the color. Those which can include: onion skins, sloe berries, bilberries (blue berries), black walnut hulls, white snowberry, common grey wall lichen, turmeric, golden-rod, and ragwort. To dye direct, put the wet wool (paper) into the dyebath and raise the temperature to simmering point. It is important that the temp is raised very gradually. Keep the dyebath simmering for the time required to get the depth of color you want. Never allow the dyebath to boil vigorously as this can destroy the color. When deciding if the correct intensity has been reached, bear in mind that the color will be somewhat lighter when it is dry. It is important to rinse out all surplus dye or it will bleed later.
There are many substances which act as mordants to improve the color and fastness of dyes, but two of the best known are alum and iron, obtainable from pharmacies. Alum generally has the effect of brightening natural dyes while fixing the color at the same time. Iron also fixes the color, but has the effect of darkening it and, in the case of many yellow dyes, turning them to green. To mordant with alum (potassium aluminum sulphate), use 1 oz or 1 ¾ teaspoon of alum for each 4 oz. of wool (paper). Mordanting is usually done before dying. Simmer for about an hour, cool, squeeze gently, and add to dye bath. It is possible to mordant with alum at the same time as you are dying by adding it directly to the dye bath, but there is a greater chance that wool (paper) may dye unevenly.
I was to the library yesterday to look for books about making paper. One that I got is "The Greystone Encyclopedia of Crafts". I was paging thru it and found a whole page of natural dyes used for wool. I imagine they will work with homemade paper too. Here it is....
YELLOW:
Barberry--twigs
Black Oak--bark
Broom--tips and flowers
Golden-rod--tops and flowers
Onion--outer skins
Queen of the Meadow--tops
Ragwort--tops and flowers
St. John's Wort--tops and flowers
Snowberry--berries
Tansy--tops and flowers
Weld--leaves and tops
BLUE:
Indigo--most parts of tree or extract
Mahonia--berries
Woad--leaves
BROWN:
Big Bud Hickory--bark
Black Walnut--hulls
Cutch--heart wood of tree and pods
Grey Lichen--whole plant
Larch--needles
Mahogany--wood chips or sawdust
Mountain Laurel--leaves
Oak--bark
Pyracantha--twigs
ORANGE:
Coreopsis-flowers
Dahlia--orange flowers
Lady's Bedstraw--roots
Madder--roots
Onion--outer skins
ROSE, PINT, PURPLE:
Bilberry--fruits
Black Currant--fruits
Black Huckleberry--fruits
Blackberry--fruits
Elder--fruits
Sloe--fruits
Wild Grape Vine--grapes
RED:
Bloodroot--roots
Dahlia--red flowers
Geranium--red flowers
Hemlock Tree--bark
Lady's Bedstraw--roots
Madder--roots
Pokeweed--berries
Prickly-Pear Cactus--fruity protuberances
GREEN:
Bracken--young tops
Fustic--wood chips
Golden-rod--tops with flowers
Horsetail--green above ground part
Ivy--berries when black
Lilly of the Valley--leaves
Nettle--leaves and tops
Privet--leaves
Veld--leaves and tops
BLACK OR GRAY:
Blackberry--young tips
Buckthorn--berries
Butternut--nuts
Logwood--bark
Yellow Flag Iris--roots
Have you tried colored lint from your dryer? Some clothes (especially sweats) make lovely colored lint. I have a dark teal sweatsuit that make marvelous lint. Also a pink one. When I'm trying for paper lint colors, I try to do my washloads all in one color at a time to keep the colors separated. Of course, there's always the regular run-o-the-mill gray too.
Peel your carrots into your paper glop. And then let that sit overnight. Not only do you get a nice delicate orange/peach colored paper, but you get those great orange flecks from the carrot peels. This and my coffee paper are my favorites so far. Oh and the grass clippings paper, too. Mint green. Lovely. And smelled good, too. (Carrot paper smelled like, uh, carrots. Coffee paper smelled like heaven.)
I made paper Saturday and Sunday. I don't use natural items to color my paper. After Christmas I shredded my wrapping paper, I shred all colors that come in the form of flyers and keep them separated in boxes. White paper from the printer can be dyed with these colored papers. I never use construction paper as the pulp content is not the same and might not do what I want. Some of the "hot" colored flyers take only about a one inch square to color a batch of paper. It lasts a long time. I also sprinkled green Embossing Arts glitter on some gree paper I made. You can put tiny pieces of a paper napkin (paisley or dark colors) into a batch of pulp and it looks very nice - almost like flower petals. Cut up pieces of gold (rather shiny) tissue paper into tiny pieces and let it float in the deckle box. When you lift it the pieces settle onto the paper and when dry look very nice.
I haven't made paper myself, ... yet, but here are some natural dyes off the top of my head:
beets - reddish purple, of course
chamomile - yellow - try a natural foods store
black walnut hulls - for black
The following are from The Complete Book of Herbs (helps when your parter is an herbalist extraordinare)
Nettle - Produces shades of dark gray-green on wool
Onion Skins - Rich browns
Madder Root - Rich russet red
I have used shiny gold tissue paper and some Christmas wraps with shiny gold in it. Those don't become slurry, they just float and become interesting additions to the final paper. You can mix old travle broshures to add interest, but I wouldn't use just shiny paper.
For a handmade paper with a lacey embossed design, try using a piece of lace fabric in the embroidery hoop or use a textured fabric like burlap or (sp?) cordiroy, for a different surface on the finished sheet. On regular screens, just lay the lace (or nubby fabric) down on top of the silk fabric of your screen and pour your pulp over all. Cool texture!
Rip into tiny pieces all the junk mail you received this week. Oh except the ones on glossy card stock, at least for your first batch. Dump all these scrabbles of paper into a gallon ziploc baggie, run some water in the baggie (lots of water, so your paper is drowning in water) and close the baggie and put it in your refrigerator. Three days later (okay, an hour, or a week, or whenever you're ready) dump all this into your blender and blend it until it's smooth. If you want to add other stuff to make color (like vegetables, tea leaves, food coloring, let your imagination run wild) or texture (like vegetables, tea leaves...
Now let the glop sit for a minute and pour off the water off the top. Now take the blender part off the base (or you'll blend your fingers, I've done it) and reach in and pull out glop. Squeeze as much water as you can out of the glop. Now squeeze MORE water out of the glop. Now spread the glop on something. I usually use my patio door screen door, it does make screen texture in the back of my paper, which I sometimes steam iron out later. Or whatever you want. Spread the glop thin, but not too thin. Experiment.
Now walk away and let it dry. When it's dry you carefully peel the glop (which is now paper) off whatever you have it drying on. You can iron it if you want, mist it and then iron it and make it thinner even.
If you don't like adding colored paper to your pulp to change the color, I have another suggestion for you. Procion fiber-reactive dyes- the same ones used for tie-dying will dye your pulp. Make sure you choose the cotton fiber-reactive dyes as they work with cellulose fibers (that's what cotton AND paper are). They will be messy to use (you will need rubber gloves). You can experiment to get the shades you desire and even mix them to get new colors. The color is permanent(unlike Rit-type dyes). You can find these dyes at art stores under various brand names, though they are all Procion dyes.
I've tried blueberries and they are great. (they are, of course, hand picked, Maine Blueberries-picked by lil' ol' me, last August, and frozen) Boil up a bunch, and either strain the berries or use some in the mush!! Let the paper soak/ let color absorb awhile.. It's absolutely gorgeous!
I purchase papermaking kits from Chasely for my store. I was talking to a lady one day about natural additives. She blueberries are great additions. several can be pureed with the slurry with an occaisional one just crushed and added before you dip. She said then it looked like the blueberry bloomed on the paper. Also said to use corn silk for great hairy paper. Another local paper producer says she loves to use iris leaves. I've seen samples of this paper. There are tiny silvery fibres scattered around. Looks very kewl!
I do know that when dying fabric with natural colors you need a mordant to hold the color and keep it true, but I doubt that would apply with paper as you'd never be washing it. For fabrics, the following things are used to make vegetable dyes. It might pay to experiment:
Onions skins boiled make a variety of yellows to browns Walnut shells make a deep brown Tea gives a soft ecru color (did you add it to the slurry?) Beets* will give a soft to bright pink - possibly even a deep pink Raspberries on fabric look like a pretty purple until rinsed, then you're left with grey You might try boiling up a bit of fienly chopped spinach and adding it to the slurry. You could try blueberries for blue but I don't know how that would work. And marigolds are reported to give a bright sunshiny yellow.
I color paper pulp with blenerized old potpouri.
I use tissues, tissue paper and napkins.
There is a great book, Scented Herb Papers by Polly Pinder that addresses these questions. It also has how to use natural scents and colours in hand made recycled and plant papers, (this was taken from the front page.)
To make the handmade paper something I can write on I........ add liquid starch to the pulpy water (it works as a binder and makes it more stiff, it also keeps ink from feathering) after cooching I put the still soggy paper on a piece of glass to dry (it gives one side a more smooth surface) to answer your question, It usually takes 1-3 days to dry depending on how thick the paper is you can also iron the paper after it is dry (you may want to put a protective something between your paper and the iron) e) I CHEAT, after it dries I put my paper in my vulcanizer and make my own hot pressed paper
I am not sure what exactly this is called but last round's secret sender to me (Stacia Blodgett) sent me some great paper that was kind of a faux tortoise shell pattern she had made herself. Well she also sent me the directions for this and I just made a batch and is fantastic and easy and fun and , oh you get the picture. So here is how you can do it to: Pick a cardstock , pretty good weight paint splotches of acrylic paint in complementary (or not) colors (metallics look great) let this dry thoroughly, the look at this point is kind of a demented camouflage look' Next water down some black acrylic paint to a very thin consistency and paint it on the camouflaged stuff, do this one sheet at a time. Don't worry that it is somewhat transparent Now using plain old rubbing alcohol drip some randomly on your paper BEFORE the black has a chance to dry! Viola, stunning stuff.
Alicia Mullins, a member of our local stamp club, shared this tip at our last meeting. Buy some of those plastic squeeze bottles like some restaurants use for ketchup or salad dressing or some hair stylists use them to apply color to your hair (ahem, so I hear). Put different colors of pulp in each bottle and snip the tip off so that the pulp will squeeze out freely. You can then squeeze the pulp exactly where you want it on your screen to create designs in your paper.
Another way to get colored paper: Use Astrobright paper, text weight or cover weight. I have gotten the loveliest papers by mixing different blues with Planetary Purple. I use about 3-4 sheets of Astrobright (usually text weight) with bunches of white or cream card stock snippings (Of which I have bushels!!!!). I usually only add about 1/8 sheet of linter since my paper snippings are relatively high quality. I often tear open an old tea bag and dump in the wet tea leaves for some "texture". OK...so they're not acid free...but it looks neat
I got a ratty blender an an old sheet at a garage sale, ripped the sheet into roughly 9x12 pieces, I bent a wire coathanger into a roughly rectangular shaper and pulled an old knee-hi nylon over it tightly and tied it off, I dug out an old dishpan, I collected all kinds of old scrap paper, bits of envelopes, junk mail etc, and I went down into the laundry room with all my stuff. I filled the blender container ½ full loosely with ripped up paper and added water til it was ½ full and blended until it looked like sludge. Then I dumped it into the dishpan and added water until I couldn't quite feel the pulp in it but still couldn't see through the water. (I'm sure there are formulas and correct proportions to go by here, but I'm more of a seat of my pants kinda girl) Then I swished my makeshift mold into and under the water; down from the back of the dishpan and under the water, tilting it from vertical to horizontal when you have it completely submerged. Then just lift straight up.
If you don't like how it looks, dump the pulp back in and try it again.
It takes a couple of tries.
Okay, you have one you like. Gently turn it over onto one of the pieces of sheet that you've laid out on top of a stack of folded towels. The pulp should be Between the nylon and the sheet. Then very firmly blot excess water off the paper thru the nylon. You'll be able to tell when you're getting the water out because the paper will start looking like paper not pulp and will often begin to seperate from the nylon onto the sheet.
When you've blotted all you can, gently lift up the nylon/coat hanger mold and if the paper doesn't come off on its own, gently help it along by loosening the edges with a gentle tool like a popsicle stick. When you have the sheet of paper on the bedsheet piece, move it carefully to a flat surface where it won't be disturbed and continue making more paper sheets. Adding other things to the pulp if you desire, like additional colors of paper briefly blended to only shred them lightly, or glitter or whatever. The more paper you make, the thinner each sucessive sheet will get as you use up the pulp in the dishpan so you will have to made and add more pulp if you make a lot. I like to iron my paper dry between two pieces of bedsheet. It hurries the process and also smooths out the paper so it can more easily be used (for my purposes at least.
when your paper is almost dry but not quite, try ironing it. I've been able to thin mine out a lot by misting and ironing it when it's not quite dry. I thinned some down way too much the time I tried to iron it dry from the start. I think if I practiced more I could do that and get the right thickness, though.
A couple weekends ago I tried to marble my own paper. I've just started to get over the disappointment of it to write. What I wanted was to be able to marble paper like the expensive stuff that you buy at places like Paper Zone. It has really bold green, yellow, red, etc in it all swirled and beautiful. I had my vat of water, put tons of borax in it and then started applying just ordinary acrylic paint to the surface. IT DISAPPEARED!!! I'm not joking! It just disappeared. Swirled around a little bit and growing smaller until it just disappeared. This continued for a while and then finally I started to see a very FAINT film on the water, so I laid my paper down wondering if would stick. NOPE!!! I kept applying paint and applying paint and applying paint. It would either disappear on me or make just a very faint film. POUTING!!!!! I wanted bold streaks of paint. Please help!! Does anyone know how to marble paper and get anywhere near to store bought
Try using video posters...grind sufficient to fill blender ultra fine...then add a few more pieces and do not grind too much...makes the nicest quality paper ! Video posters are about my favorite. You don't need and stabelizers or other additives (except for cosmetic purposes) if the color doesn't suit you then add some colored linter paper, a piece of a colored envelope...some colorful junk mail.
I've been playing around making some paper with some heavy plant inclusions... things like seeded grass stalks, leaves and whole flowers with stems. I've been using the A. Grummer Pour Mold kit. What I'm envisioning is a multicolor 3-D landscape all made at once from paper and inclusions. Only problem I'm having is controlling the depth of the inclusions. There seems to be a really fine line between burying them so deep that they stay put in the dried product, and close enough to the surface that they're clearly visible. One of the ideas I had on my way home from school this evening is to use less water in the mold and do more of a spooning of a slightly thicker pulp so things will tend to float away less.
I've been making paper with a grummel like box as well! (Hubby made me two) I've had similar problems putting things into paper and have found that if I place it in after I've just about drained the paper and before I squeeze water out and pressed it in it works well. I've done that with dried pressed flowers. They kinda get pressed into the top of the paper that way and stick in quite well. I've also placed items on the screen before pouring the pulp in and had pretty good results with it sticking more or less to that side of the sheet. I've done that with torn fabric scraps and sunday comics as well as pressed dried flowers. One of my fav. looks is tiny bits of cut up threads to include some of the metalic ones (YOU could use scraps of yarn too), that I put in the blender and it looks pretty cool in the paper. I've been meaning to try to marbelize some paper soon. I'll report when I do that. I haven't had any problems with the mix of pulp so I haven't played with adding any additives other than the things I want in the paper. And I've always just used it all up so haven't tried to store it.
If you are having trouble getting your inclusions to "Stick" into your paper you might need to be soaking them first. When I first began making paper I was really excited to create my own pedal papers. Only to have the flower pedals lift off after the paper was thoroughtly dry. the key here is...wet fiber with bond with wet fiber...so when using flower pedals...reconstituet the pedals....soak in warm water until they have movement...then they will stick in (not on) the paper. The same goes with imbedding images...you can copy a photograph (at a copy store- our printer ink is not stable andwill run) cut around the image- leaving about 1/8 inch border around the picture- soak it in warm water for a couple of minutes...then let it rest on top of your pulp as you are raising the deckle from the water...tuck those edges down into the pulp (helps to have someone doing that for you)with a knife of something. Don't let too much pulp get on top of this image or you won't be able to see it later. Then go through the screening and couching as normal. it can really be a great piece of paper !
My experience with papermaking is not vast by any stretch but I have had a little sucess with the `old fashioned' mold and deckle - make one piece of paper and lay your inclusions on it. Then pull a second very thin piece of paper from your vat, then lay it over the inclusions and press the layers like one peice.....so with the pour method maybe try making a second piece that's very thin? And then lay it on top... mayeb even couch it a little before combining the two? RE: keeping pulp----it would be better to refrigerate it...covered....when the stuff goes bad it has a most DISGUSTING smell
I have a papermaking book that uses squeeze bottles and different colors of pulp to get the colors placed where wanted.Could you use that technique but instead of varying colors use varying mixes of pulp inclusions?
One of the things that I like to do is place a small piece of fern on top of your draining pulp framing your page in any corner of the peice. After you have couched and pressed your sheet, remove the piece of fern from the sheet. It will leave a very nice impression of the fern. You have a debossed image with very little extra effort.
I have been playing around with dried azalea blossoms from my yard. I dried them in the microfleur and then pressed them into the pulp in the deckle, using the pour method too. This worked really well until I took the dried paper and bent it to make a book cover. The blossoms started to peel off the paper. I coated them with PPA (the glue you mentioned) and everything was fine. Don't know what would happen to add the glue to the pulp but it couldn't hurt. Next time I plan to use a turkey baster to squirt abit of pulp onto the embedded petals and see if that doesn't help hold them into the paper.
After you have blended the paper into pulp, you can add in any number of items to make unique handmade papers. Confetti, sequins, tiny bits of colored papers, finely torn bits of maps, comics, money, dried flower petals, yarns, threads, spices, tea grounds, coffee grounds, tumeric which will turn your paper yellow, herbs, and even dryer lint will all give your efforts a truly handmade look.
Place a few of the add-ins on top of the screen and then carefully pour the slurry on top. Place more add-ins on top. Or you can mix the add-ins into the slurry before pouring the mixture onto the screen.
ADDING COLOR TO YOUR PAPER
You can make beautiful handmade papers out of magazines, tissue paper, junk mail, napkins, typing papers, construction paper, kleenix, recycle paper that you previously made but did not particularly care for, cardstock, and even dryer lint.
1. Recycle colored papers. Tearing up any of the above mentioned papers will give you a fairly intensely colored page.
2. After the newly made paper has been couched and partially dryed, you can gently dab the paper with the Brush Box dye-based inks. The colors will spread and mix according to how much water is remaining in the paper. If you don't want them to blend, wait until the paper is completely dry before adding the ink.
3. You can paint your couching sheets with very concentrated watercolor. As you couch your page, the color will transfer to your new paper. These couch sheets will retain the color even after they have dried, so unless you want that color on your next sheet of paper, do not reuse them.
4. You can add watercolor to your water which will result in faintly colored paper. I made a piece of paper out of red tissue paper. The red inks remained in my water containing my frame and deckle. The next piece of white paper I tried to make was faintly tinged with pink. It was a welcome addition at the time, but if you do NOT want to repeat a color for your next piece of paper, I would recommend discarding the water in between each piece of new paper you are making.
Tips & Techniques: Dried/Pressed Flowers, Marbelized Paper, Paste Paper, Plantable Ornaments, Seed Paper