Part of this journey has been about making my own paper as well.
I searched the market for colourfull tea blends and interesting aromas, the idea was to decorate my paper sheets with them and experiment with textures and colour bleeds from natural pigments. I picked callendula, lavender, black tea, chamomile, aronia and osymathus for my special blend and proceded to create my first batch!
- Creating the mold.
Ingredients
2 x photo frames
Window screen fabric
Scissors and a staple gun.
Discard the glass and cardboard backing on each frame and fasten the screen on one of them, using the staple gun.
- Creating the paper pulp.
Ingredients
Scrap paper
A large container
A blender/food processor
Water
Cut your paper into small pieces. Fill your container with water and soak your paper until soggy. Blend your paper to a pulp in small batches. Make sure there are no large chunks of paper in you pulp, unless that's the style your going for.
- Making paper!
Ingredients
A large container
Your paper pulp
Tea leaves and flower pedals
Drying rack
Towels
Small sponge
Pour your pulp into your water filled container, the thickness of your paper will depend on the pulp/water ratio. For this project I used 1lt of pulp in 4 lt of water.
Sprinkle your tea leaves and pedals and stir.
Comb through the cloudy water with your screen and lift to allow the water to drain through the holes.
Allow a few seconds to strain and remove the top frame to reveal the neat edges on the screen.
The trickiest part is to transfer the paper to the towel, you might need to use sponge to remove moisture and push the pulp off the screen.
Now all you have to do is wait! Keep in mind that this process requires a warm sunny day or a good dehumidifier ;)
My paper was used to make custom invitations for my Tea ceremony event a few days later.
