Paper Making

I used to make my own paper... eons ago..., when the kids were small and I had an over abundance of herb and flowers in the garden back East. It was always a good fun project to do with the kids. They just LOVE getting their hands gooey! I still have many of these papers left today and use them on my 'special' projects. But!!! I also have gotten smarter and have been scanning in my one of kind papers to use on my digital projects!

Found a GREAT tutorial on the web at CraftyDaisies.com HERE so you too can try your hand at making paper too. It's also a good way to use up all of your recycled newsprint, scraps, junk paper. Just try to avoid the glossy ads. One thing I would add to this... I used a lot of plant roots and veggies for coloring too. I used red beets, orris root, carrot roots and tops, goldenrod, berries, flowers, eucalyptus leaves, rose hips, red cabbage (makes blue), grapes, black walnut hulls... the list is endless. and yes, I had a HUGE garden. Was determined to fill two acres of grass that no one wanted to cut. :)

You can soak the plant in water overnight to extract the color or even steep the woodier ones for about an hour. Fresher the better, if you choose to dry and use later, you will get a lot lighter color in the end. And of course, if you use construction paper with color, that will color your batch too.

Good luck and have fun!