Juliet Page julepage@access.digex.net
I've been playing with homemade paper again. :) Today I made several duplex cards with a ribbon tie embedded in the middle. Basically they're horizontal format cards with one color paper on the inside, and fancy heavy inclusion paper on the outside. The ribbon wraps around the folded card and ties in the front.

I started by cutting a few more screens from our old window screen which needed to be replaced anyways. This process requires two. I suppose one could use lace instead of screen. Then I made a solid color pulp and poured it onto the screen in the mold. This becomes the inside of the card. I then removed the screen from the mold and set it aside on 3 sponges, so it stayed really moist.

Then I blended another batch of pulp added my inclusings etc to make the fancy front of the card. I then flipped that over onto the fine mesh pressing thing which came with the Grummer kit. This puts the outside front of the card onto the white mesh, and the inside facing up. Carefully peel off the screen. I needed to sponge it ever so slightly. The key is to keep it all really drippy wet at this stage.

I then laid a ribbon about 4 times the width of the card across and centered on the pulp. The ribbon went across the 5.5 inch dimension of the paper, about 25% of the way in from the edge. Then I took the inside solid pulp, still sitting on the screen on the sponges, and carefully turn this upside down. Since the pulp is soalking wet, it sticks to the screen and doesn't fall off easily. I align this with the front piece. Now I proceed to finish the paper as I usually do with single sheets. Since I was doubling the paper, I started out with less paper in the pulp mixture for each individual piece, so it wasn't unbearibly thick! I think I'm going to make myself a new deckle for the inside piece... so it's about ¼ inch smaller all around than the outside piece. That would make a neat border when you open up the inside. Hmmm, sounds like I need to fire up my scroll saw.