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I remeber reading many years ago an article about making your won paper.

Now I'm into crafts and am thinking of making Chrimbo cards this year again (haven't done any craft stuff for about 4 years now with varoius house moves and having a now 3 year old). I thought it would be even nicer to have homemade paper/card to use.

Has anyone done it before? Can you share some tips with me? I can't remember anything except needing a blender (can I do it by hand instead?) and some sort of muslin 'rack' to dry the paper on....

How do you get different thivknesses (or is that just dependant how much you layer on) and is it easy to get the appearance of 'chunks' of paper?

I only want to do this if I can use my junk mail / read magazines. My thought is to recycle here not through the council schemes - can I use this stuff? Also, for interest can I add colour, say through food dye?

Sorry for the barrage of questions!

I've made it before, but not for a while now. I don;t think yu can use magazines for recylcing this way, the paper is to shiny and doesn't compress like eg newspaper/envelopes, etc. The paper is torn and pulped in a blender with sater to a runny pulp, then spread on a frame with a mesh insert - I used a bit of metal mesh that was soemthing to do with car bodywork, but can't remember exactly what it was. When it's dry, peel it off and leave to dry completely. I think food colouring would probably come off on your hands, etc, so I would avoid that.

I know there is a hgue amount of info on the net, so have a Google and see what's out there. You've put me in the mood to have another go now

to really reduce reuse recycle, make a frame from an old wire coat hanger, pulled into a kind of square shape, then stretch the leg from a pair of nylons over it. This gives you a handy mesh frame, and you can make a few if you have the requisite parts so you don't have to wait an age for it to dry each time. Peel it off the tight and hey presto off you go again.

Susan

I wonder... whether I can contact an old friend of mine... will have a go for you but please don't hold your breath. It was about 7 years ago when I last heard from her.

She experimented with papermaking using all sorts of things that could be found - nettles, raspberries... all natural stuff. Some definitely worked better than others.

Love the tip from Susan!!

Cheers susan and shirlz.... Love the tip about the tights and coat hangers.. Will definately use that instead
Shirlz, if you do manage it that would be fab as I'd love to be able to encorporate plants for interest!

There was an article in Kitchen Garden Magazine a while back about making paper out of vegetable stuff. Will have a dig through my collection and possibly type up details.

Oh was there.... if it's not that far back I'll see if I can find it too but haven't had it for long and don't remember seeing one. Maybe it was further back than my first mag?

Thanks again...

G'Day Shortie,

you can make a mould and deckle for papermaking with some spare timber and the wire mesh used in window screens. I don't know if you guys use 'em but we would be carried off without em. Shredded paper is good and if you soak it in water and the hit with a blender or paint mixer that will break it down. You can do it chemically too.

Back when I was a chemist I did some work on paper coatings with APM (Australian Paper Manufacturers) in Melbourne. I even have an American Patent around somewhere that came out of the work. Well, enough posing

Nev