How to Make Paper from Scratch

Making paper can be a great project for a family or a group of crafters! You can be as creative as you like, and it looks beautiful when used in gifts and other crafts!

You'll need: an old blender, a few sponges, several towels, a baking sheet with sides (optional), paper towels, recycled paper (newspaper, old notebooks), an iron, and some paper-making screens and frame. You can get screens of many different sizes from craft supply stores, or online.

Tear up the recycled to small pieces into the blender, and cover with water. Blend to a pulp. The smaller the pieces, the thiner and smoother your paper will be. Pour into a bucket; I usually put enough water in the bucket to cover the frames, and about three blenders full of pulp. Refresh the pulp after every page or every other page.

Stir the water to make the pulp float evenly through the water. Keeping the frame level, scoop the frame along the bottom of the bucket and turn flat. Level out the frame and lift out of the water. Wait for the water to drain down, and place on towel, or on a baking sheet.

Remove the wooden frame, and cover with a screen. Press sponge and remove as much water as possible. The more water you take out now, the faster the paper will dry. There are other ways to remove water, by using a roller or press. Whatever you do, make sure to cover the paper on either sides with a screen first, and never press directly onto the pulp sheet. At the point, you can also add texture by using different screen patterns and other flat objects.

Flip the screen over and continue removing water with your sponge. Transfer the page to a pressing cloth or towel, and carefully remove the paper-making screen. Keep in mind that whenever you transfer the page, you should sponge the top, and the page will attach itself to the layer below. You'll want to peel the top layer off carefully so the page doesn't come apart.

Transfer the page to a drying surface-- either on drying racks, concrete, or boards. When transferring the pages, remember to keep a thick screen, frame, or towel on the page and do not handle directly. I layered paper towels between the pages and concrete, to make sure the pulp didn't attach to the concrete. Allow to dry as much as posible.

If you want your pages to dry faster and stay more flat, you can iron them. Sandwich the page between two layers of a thin towel or pressing cloth, and iron the top. Be sure not to apply the iron directly to the page, or the paper will stick to your iron.

Once dry, the pages will be much lighter than during the rest of the process. After they are dry, you can trim the edges and use them to do any project you like! Homemade paper makes great greeting cards, small art notebooks, or gift tags!