How to Hand Make Paper

We keep a bag in our school room to put recyclable papers into.  When I was putting everything away at the end of our school year, I noticed what a nice variety of colors of papers it had in it.  I decided I’d try to make some homemade papers with some of them.  I think these will be great for scrapbooking or card making.

Here’s what you’ll need:

colored papers
blender
large tub
anything that floats (we have used glitter, dried, crushed flower petals, thread) Use your imagination here!!
frame with screen (I asked my Dad to make a frame with an opening the size of the papers I wanted.  Then I went to the local window shop and they found some old screen for me in their trash.  We stapled it together.)

I picked out the papers that didn’t have any writing on them, or just tore off the writing if possible.  I then sorted them by colors.  Then, I got the kids involved.  I had them shred them into small pieces for me.  Next, we soaked the pieces overnight in water.The next day, we drained most of the water off and blended the papers.  It looked like a paper smoothie.

Then we put the paper smootie into a big rubbermaid tub and added some water.

Next, we put the frame into the water mixture and swirled it around a little, then pulled it out.  You might have to do this a few times to get the paper pulp evenly distributed.  Then, just set it outside on a sunny day to dry.  You can peel it off when it is done.

You can keep making paper from the same pulp until the paper produced gets too thin.  You’ll be able to tell what I mean when you get to that point!