Papermaking Workshop

For our monthly sketchbook class we ventured off track to go green so we made paper. The weather was perfect and we all enjoyed spending the day outside in the sun. It was so much fun and the women embraced the time and process and made some really beautiful papers. We added bits and pieces of so many different kinds of paper to the slurry of watercolor paper pulp that I had created the day before as a base. Some of us took our last few sheets of paper and added dried flowers and seeds. We are going to paint cards and send them to friends with the instructions to take the card outside and plant it. Here are a few pictures from our day together. I made inexpensive screens for the women to use with a fluorescent light cover and some window screens, they all were able to take them home so they can make more paper later. With this creative group of women I am excited to see what they will do with their papers!

Penny is panning for slurry

Franza is carefully placing her dried flowers onto her beautiful paper

I had to laugh as I forgot to set up the grown up tables to work on and everyone ended up on the girls table. I kind of felt like I was torturing them. 

Some papers

This is even sadder as they started on the grass and them moved to the kids table. I did save everyone by finally setting up the bigger tables! Christa you are so cute!! 

Penny is busy adding her pressed pansies to her paper while I made more slurry.You can add starch or glue to put back in some sizing to your paper.

More fun on the big tables!

As the paper dries you can better see the wonderful edges and colors achieved by using different colored papers in our slurry

Some added seeds to make living cards to send to friends. Just take your card and cut into different pieces and plant. Make sure you send them info on the seeds you have sent them so they know what they are planting.

This was our first piece of paper, I covered some of the dried flowers with thin pieces of my saved paper towels from painting classes. They are covered with wonderful colors after students have cleaned their brushes and paints. These papers will be wonderful to use on collage pieces also!