How to make recycled paper... and some other happy scraps

We have been having a lot of fun making our own recycled paper recently as part of our going green "one small change" project... So much so I thought I'd share a little of the fun here!

What Ingredients will you need?

• We used some medium weight multi purpose paper for this project.(You can use almost any kind of paper)
• Some dried rose petals and lavender (optional but they do look pretty)
• A few drops of essential oil (optional, but it does smell nice)
• Liquid starch

What Equipment will you need?:

• A large tray both deep and wide enough to immerse your frame and paper mulch in.
• A sponge
• An embroidery hoop
• Some netting (like the kind you find on fairy dresses)
• Some large squares of felt.

How to make the paper:

We began by tearing the paper into small pieces. Then we loaded it into a blender with some warm water (enough water to just cover the paper)

The thinner or more watery the solution the thinner the paper sheets will turn out to be.

Then we emptied the solution into a large tray before sprinkling in the essential oil and dried flower petals.



Once the solution had been well stirred we immersed an embroidery hoop that we had clamped over some netting into the solution.

Here is a picture of the embroidery hoop and netting we used...


Make sure that the netting is covered evenly with the paper mulch before lifting the hoop out of the solution.

Once all the excess water had dripped away we covered the entire hoop with a large piece of felt and gently tipped the contents over (like turning a cake onto a cooling rack) dabbing away at the underside of the netting with a dry sponge to release the paper mulch from the netting.

Here is the paper mulch resting on the felt to dry.


We sprayed the top of the paper mulch with a little liquid starch and left it to dry (drying takes about 10 hours)
The finished result looks like beautiful rustic art paper.
I'm hoping to get a rectangular frame soon so that we can make some writing sheets!

Watch this helpful video about making recycled paper. A great step by step guide!