Making craft paper is a cheap and earth-friendly way to provide materials for a variety of paper crafts. Homemade paper is thick enough to work for almost any basic project, yet decorative enough to serve as fancy stationary. You can add many different items for extra color and texture, such as seeds, petals, glitter, fabrics and colorful dryer lint. You can recycle all kinds of scrap paper to turn into homemade paper, including newspaper, construction paper, junk mail, coupons and printer paper.
Instructions
1. Shred your junk mail, and remove any plastic, such as envelope windows. Shred enough junk mail to lightly pack four cups. Shred enough newspaper to lightly pack four cups. Place shredded junk mail and newspaper in a large bowl. Pour three cups of hot water into the bowl, and let the paper soak for five minutes.
2. Pour newspaper mixture into a blender. Add eight drops of food coloring, four drops of liquid starch and one teaspoon of glitter to the blender. Puree the mixture until the paper is destroyed, creating a smooth texture.
3. Fill a large, four-quart basin half full with warm water. Use the plastic spoon to stir one tablespoon of glue into the water. Mix well. Pour the contents of the blender into the basin, and mix well.
4. Slide your paper-making screen into the basin, screen side first, and slowly lift it back out, moving it back and forth gently to create an even layer of pulp over the screen. When you catch enough pulp to make a heavy sheet of paper, lift the screen out of the water.
5. Let the screen drip into the basin, and use the knife to scrape any excess pulp from the wooden frame. When the pulp stops dripping, lay a piece of felt over the paper. Place the paper-making screen on a dry towel, felt side down. Press a sponge against the screen to remove excess water from the paper. Remove as much water as possible.
6. Peel the felt and paper away from the screen. The paper should stick to the felt, making removal easy. Place the paper, felt side down, on a flat surface and let dry overnight. Peel the dry paper away from the felt, and use it as craft paper.
7. Repeat the entire process as needed to make multiple pieces of paper. Make sure you have a dry piece of felt for each piece of paper you want to create. This recipe should make about six muted pink, glittered, average writing size sheets of paper.
Tags: junk mail, into basin, away from, felt side, felt side down, four cups