Paper Making

Over the weekend I broke out my brand new blender and made 15 or 16 sheets of paper. It's the first time I've made paper in about 10 years. Although it was fairly easy to pick up where I left off, I still have to learn exactly how much pulp to use for each sheet. I also forgot how long it takes for the paper to dry, exacerbated of course, by the thick sheets! Even in this dry climate, which has been unusually wet lately, it takes at least 2 days for the sheets to dry enough to press. And now I have twice as many dog feet to watch out for during the drying process. I can dry them on a rack, but then they don't dry flat. That's something I will have to experiment with.

Mr. Field Notes also had to dismantle the entire kitchen to make room for my little paper processing plant. At least we've got a huge kitchen. This would never have been possible during the dark days of grad school. Those were also the cramped kitchen days. Now we've got a bright airy kitchen. I love it. We can work together in the same space - him making complicated Indian meals and me making paper. It will be a lot of fun and good bonding.

For the paper making, I'm using a slightly different technique so the sheets are smoother than before. I am eager to see how the colorful paper looks with this new technique. Over the weekend I didn't have any truly colorful paper to add to the pulp so all of the sheets are on the neutral side. With nothing to jazz them up, I decided to press leaves into the pulp. I think they make very neat cards with an organic feel. I think I'll add them to my etsy store as a set with different leaf imprints.


The example card pictured here is from my old collection. The new collection is still being flattened :-)