When I decided to fill out a baby book for my fast growing bubba, I thought it would be timeless to make a little book from hand. Well it’s definitely harder than it looks, but here is my rough guide to homemade paper! First I recycled old paper, especially whitish/cream toned paper from our recycling bin. I ripped it up to be pretty small. I then added it to a bin/bucket and added about two cups of water. I used a mixer to blend the paper and water into a fine pulp. I left it overnight to increase in thickness and become more glue like. Using small timber i made a frame and stapled some fire screen mesh onto it. Basically the frame is used to sieve through the pulp (which should be fine and watery) until the whole mesh is covered by pulp. I then made a backing screen. This can be made out of transparency paper/plastic or glass. It needs to fit within the frame though. Once I covered the frame, I tipped the pulp upside down onto the plastic. It should have flattened and look like a textured piece of paper. Pulling it slowly off the plastic is important to do before it dries and sticks to the plastic. I left mine to dry for about 24 hours on wood. Also, dried herbs or flowers are awesome to put in the mixture at the start – I used Calendula and Rosemary.
