Step 5. Set the hand mold down in a drain pan. Loosen the straps. Lift the deckle up and off of the screen and screen support. If the screen lifts with the deckle, separate the two with your fingernail or a knife blade.
Step 6. Set the deckle aside and carefully put the cover screen over the new sheet resting on the screen support. Press a sponge firmly down on the cover screen. Wring the sponge. Press again. Continue until the sponge removes no more water.
Step 7. Lift a corner of the cover screen carefully and peel it off slowly. If the sheet comes up with the screen, try the other corners. Once the screen is removed, pick up the papermaking screen with the new sheet on it. Turn the screen over, placing the new sheet on a couch sheet. The new sheet will be between the screen and couch sheet.
Step 8. Press a sponge firmly all over the screen’s surface. Wring the sponge and press again. Repeat until the sponge removes hardly any water. To remove the screen, place one hand on the middle and the other hand at a corner. Slowly lift the corner and peel off the screen, sliding one hand back as the other lifts. If the sheet comes up with the screen, press down hard on each corner and try lifting at each.
Step 9. Put a dry couch sheet over the new sheet. With a press bar, press down hard over the entire surface of the couch sheet until the couch sheet has absorbed as much water as it can.
Step 10. Take off the top couch sheet and then carefully lift one corner of the new sheet. If the sheet is too weak to lift up, repeat step 9 with a dry couch sheet. When a corner can be lifted, you’ll be able to peel it off the couch sheet.
Step 11. Place the new sheet on an ironing board or on a cloth-covered flat surface. Place a thin cloth over the sheet and iron the sheet dry with an iron turned up to maximum heat (no steam).
Drying Options
Heat drying delivers paper immediately, but generally causes the paper to curl and cockle. Drying without heat is better for some paper qualities and delivers a better-looking sheet. For best quality, dry your paper slowly, under pressure. Curing occurs, as well as drying, during time under pressure. The longer the paper is under pressure, the more some qualities will be enhanced. Here’s what you do:
Complete step 10 (see page 55) and place the paper between two dry couch sheets.
Use a press if you have one (see Building a Paper Press, page 34), or place the sheet (between couch sheets) between two boards and stack weight (for instance, books or cement blocks) on the top board.
Wait 20 minutes and exchange the wet couch sheets for dry ones.
Wait 2 hours and change couch sheets again. Leave the paper under pressure for 5 or 6 hours more, or better yet, overnight.
Check paper for dryness. If it’s not too thick, the paper should be dry. If not dry, keep exchanging couch sheets until it is.
Instead of stacking weights on top of the boards, you can use two strong clamps to keep the paper under pressure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I make paper out of lint from my dryer?
A: Ah, my favorite question not to answer! Paper is cellulose fibers naturally bonded. If your lint is synthetic, the fibers won’t bond. They might hang together by friction due to their length. Even if enough of the lint fibers are natural, wet lint is horribly hard to disperse in the vat or in the deckle of a hand mold to form a new sheet. But with a high enough percentage of cellulose fiber and patience to get reasonable dispersion, a hint of lint can impart character to a sheet.
Q: I left pulp in water for a couple of days and it got smelly. Can I still use it?
A: Normally, wet pulp will not become smelly in a day, but it can spoil and smell if left for a couple days in warm weather. When pulp that smells is made into new dry sheets, the paper will normally not smell.
Q: What should I do with leftover pulp?
A: You can drain the pulp and store it in an airtight container in your refrigerator. When you’re ready to use it, add water and reprocess in a blender. Another option is to drain the pulp and pack it into a casting mold. Let it dry, and you will have a paper casting (see chapter 7). Never dump leftover pulp down sink drains, as it may cause plumbing problems.
Q: Does using an iron to dry paper hurt the paper?
A: Subtly, yes, but sometimes we are willing to accept the subtle harm to have our paper immediately. Visible harm occurs if you iron in a manner that chars surface fibers, such as leaving the iron too long in one spot or making thick paper that requires too much heat to dry. If it bothers you to iron right on the sheet, you can use a thin cloth over the fibers before applying the iron.
Q: How can I make a ″pure” sheet of paper that isn’t drab or speckled from ink?
A: Select sections of paper to recycle that have no printing on them. Unprinted margins are the main place to look, but other significant sources of unprinted paper are available. Envelopes and colorful retail store bags deliver large areas of unprinted surface, with subtle to spectacular colors.
Q: I’m getting a thin spot in my paper. What can I do?
A: This usually occurs with professional papermaking screens, which are very finely woven. Consequently, fibers can get stuck easily in the tiny openings. Stuck fibers will cause more to get stuck. Soon a sizeable spot in your screen is plugged. This prevents water from going through those openings. Where water doesn’t go, fibers don’t go, resulting in a thin spot, or even a hole, in your sheet.
To avoid this problem, rinse your screen in clear water after every sheet. Watch your screen for ″plugs” and loosen them with water pressure from your sink spray. Apply a stiff brush as the water is running. Dishwasher detergent might help.
Another measure might help: When a thin spot appears in a newly formed sheet, remove pulp in that area of the screen. Scratch the screen surface with a thumbnail or wire brush. Refloat the pulp and form the sheet again. Often, the thin spot does not reoccur.
Q: The papermaking screen is leaving a pattern on my paper. Is there a way to avoid it?
A: Anything touching the wet surface of a newly formed sheet will leave its impression. This is very noticeable with papermaking or cover screens that are as coarse as window screen. If you don’t like this effect, try using a thin cloth for a cover screen instead of window screen. I use cut-up cotton bed sheets, but handkerchiefs, cotton dish towels, or lightweight interfacing from the fabric store also work. The cloth’s surface (texture, weave, pattern) will be placed on that one side of the sheet. You can also try removing the window screen as soon as possible and after removing as little water as possible. Place a cloth on that surface as well, and keep it on throughout pressing and drying. If enough water remained in the sheet, this procedure may entirely remove the window screen marks. If drying with heat (by ironing), make sure that the cloth can take the heat. This means no synthetics.
Q: I burned out two blenders this year. Is that normal?
A: You are almost surely putting too much paper in the blender and not enough water. When the mixture in the blender is too thick, the motor can’t get the blender blades through it. Put in less paper and more water so the blender starts up and runs easily.
A good rule of thumb is not to exceed the equivalent of an 8½″ × 11″ sheet of copy paper in the blender. Use 3 to 4 cups of water. Adjust measurements when recycling thicker paper. Loaded properly, blenders can last for years.
How to Make Big Sheets
What if you want to make a sheet larger than a standard mold-and-deckle size? It will take a bit of patience, but it can be done. Here’s one way to go about it, and you might think up others!
1. Find a smooth hard surface larger than the sheet you are planning. The surface might be a waterproof tabletop, acrylic or laminate sheets, a repurposed window or patio glass door (think safety), or any similar surface you can imagine.
2. Spray it with a release agent (see page 128). Form a sheet with your hand mold. Remove the screen and sheet. Turn them upside down and deposit the wet sheet on the hard surface. The screen will be on top. Press a sponge on
the screen to remove some, but not all, water. This will ″couch” the sheet off the screen onto the surface.
3. Remove the screen. Make a second sheet and couch it onto the hard surface the same way as the first, but slightly overlap the edges of the first and second sheets. Because water is present, the sheets will bond where they are overlapped.
4. Continue this process with as many sheets as necessary to reach the desired sheet size. To smooth overlaps, spray a bit of water on them (not much, just a bit). Tap the overlapped areas with a toothbrush. Mobility of fibers due to being wetted and the action of toothbrush bristles will tend to resurface the sheet where tapped.
5. Put some window screen over the sheet, a section at a time or the entire surface at once, and remove water with a sponge. Press by putting couch sheets or toweling over the sheet and pressing with a large board all at once, or a section at a time with a smaller press board.
6. Press again, as in step 5, using as much pressure as possible. If you have pressed reasonably hard, the sheet can be left on the surface to air dry.
Usually, but not always, the sheet will retain contact with the surface until dry, providing a beautiful evenly dried sheet. Sometimes, contact is too firm and getting the sheet to release is difficult; sometimes, contact will not last and the sheet will release and dry unevenly, creating cockle and curl. In the latter case, use a spray mister to evenly dampen the sheet and press between two boards for several hours.
Deckle Variations
Placed on top of the papermaking screen, a deckle determines the shape and size of the sheet. Usually this shape matches the outer size and shape of the mold beneath it. If a piece of flat material with an image cut out of it is placed on top of the screen but under the deckle, the sheet formed will be the size and shape of the cut-out area. You can buy ready-made templates from papermaking suppliers, or make your own from food board, foam core, wood, plastic, or even metal (see Handmade Molds and Templates, pages 80–81).
Each paper sheet made with this template produces a folded card and envelope to fit. The plastic version is available online, or trace the template on page 201 onto foam board and cut your own.
Chapter 4 Recycling Techniques
No matter which papermaking process you use, artistic and decorative methods can take you far beyond plain white or colored sheets.
With the techniques in this chapter, you will explore many materials, styles, and moods. Experiment with different options and let your imagination run free. When you find one that strikes your fancy, go with it!
Mottled or Chunky Surface
Run long enough, a blender full of pulp will reduce paper to individual fibers. When the blender is turned off before all the paper comes apart, though, there can be many small paper “chunks” in the resulting pulp. If the paper being recycled is from sheets of several different colors, or of a single sheet on which there were many different ink colors, the chunks could be multicolored.
When a sheet is formed with this kind of pulp, the many individual fibers sink to the screen while the colored chunks tend to float to the surface. This can result in surfaces that are very interesting and pretty. So, by simply experimenting with when to turn off the blender and with what paper or papers to recycle, hundreds of different decorative and artistic sheets can be made.
Step 1. Get paper napkins of three or four different colors.
Step 2. Tear up enough napkins to make a single new sheet (enough to cover an area about 7″ square).
Step 3. Put the torn-up napkin pieces into water in a blender.
Step 4. Run the blender only 4 seconds.
Step 5. Make a sheet of paper, using whatever technique you prefer (see chapter 3).
Writing on Mottled Surfaces
The mottled surface technique can make impressive handmade papers and greeting cards, but they can be difficult, or impossible, to write on. The writing gets lost in the mottling. To fix this problem, use a turkey baster to lay a smaller, even layer of solid white or colored pulp on a second screen and then pulp layer (see page 78) it onto the mottled surface. This provides a writing patch. It can be made in different shapes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I put seeds in paper? Will they grow?
A: Seeds can be added to pulp for papermaking. Add them after blending the pulp and before forming sheets. (See the project on page 194.) Large, flat seeds are easiest to embed. Whether planted paper will bloom and grow depends on many factors, including seed quality, paper thickness, and planting conditions, but brief exposure to water during paper making will not cause germination.
A seed consultant suggests that most hardy seeds are good candidates for making plantable paper. He recommends cosmos, marigold, calendula, poppies, and cornflower seeds. In his opinion, it is safe to iron dry sheets with these embedded seeds. Seed paper covered with a thin layer of dirt, plus warmth, water, and sunshine will, hopefully, bring on sprouts.
Surface Embedment
Anything that is thin, flat, and flexible can be locked onto the surface of a sheet of handmade paper by the top layers of fibers. Even the thinnest sheet of paper is made up of numerous layers of small papermaking fibers. Suitable materials can be put down into the last of the water as the fibers descend toward the papermaking screen. The final fibers will attach the material into the sheet’s surface. A few experiments will show you what works and what doesn’t.
For this technique, you want the pulp to drain slowly, to allow time for the added elements to embed. For best results, recycle paper that results in a slower draining pulp, or add more water. The deeper the water in the hand mold, the longer it will take to drain. Also, use a bit more pulp, because surface embedment works better on a somewhat thicker sheet (think greeting card thickness).
Step 1. Prepare pulp by running paper in a blender. Run the blender until few or no chunks of paper are left.
Step 2. Select something to embed. This could be leaves or other bits of nature, ribbon, fabric scraps, or your favorite character cut from the Sunday comics. Dip the item into one of the containers of pulp. This will make it wet and possibly deposit some papermaking fibers on its edges. Set it nearby in some manner that it can be quickly and easily picked up.
Step 3. Start the papermaking process by pouring pulp into the mold. Immediately grab the cutout. As the last water and fibers descend toward the screen, firmly push the cutout below the surface of the still-draining water and onto the fibers already lying on the screen. The remaining fibers should descend and tie the embedded item into the sheet’s surface.
Step 4. Continue the papermaking process as usual (see chapter 3).
An embedded strip of burlap creates a stream connecting two lakes, or maybe just adds a burst of texture.
Napkinization
If you can pronounce it, you can do it! Anyone can transform an art napkin into a beautiful art card or sheet. Here’s how it’s done.
1. Cut an interesting art image from a napkin. Peel the image to a single-ply piece. (This can be a little tricky, but it’s definitely do-able.)
2. Put the rest of the napkin into your blender and recycle it into pulp. Add other fiber if you wish, but it’s not necessary; the resulting sheet will be stronger than the typical napkin. Form a sheet. Take the wet sheet from the mold.
3. Pick up the cutout by hand or with tweezers and carefully place it where you want it on the surface of the wet sheet. (If the paper is to become a card, place it on the right-hand side to allow for a center fold.) This takes care and maybe a little practice. If you can hold onto the cutout at opposite ends and drop the center down first, you can let the rest of the cutout roll down onto the surface.
4. When the cutout is down, you will see the water rapidly absorb it into the sheet’s surface. Subsequently press and dry the sheet as usual (see pages 54–55).
Using Botanicals
You can achieve some truly beautiful results by adding selections from nature into your papermaking. Let fall leaves fal
l into your handmade paper projects! The paper will be unique; no other card or sheet will ever have that leaf. If the leaf is from one of your trees, it has within it whatever work, effort, and time you have put into the tree’s care, or simply your appreciation for the tree beauty. The paper you make can be used for all types of projects from home décor to greeting cards.
If the paper is dried under pressure, leaves can be taken from your lawn directly to your papermaking area and used without any preparation. I also like the effect of placing leaves between pages of big books for a week or so; most leaves respond beautifully to this or any other extended pressing. This method also works for embedding flower petals onto your paper. Here are some tips that have proven successful. Add them to your own good ideas.
Cut stems or flower heads as soon after blooming as possible. The more petals are exposed to the sun, the less pigment they’ll retain in handmade paper.
The best time to harvest flowers is in the morning after dew disappears.
Press leaves and petals in an old phone book or flower press to embed flat. To save whole flower heads, hang stems in bunches upside down in a dry, cool place, or on a rack where air can circulate.
To save an entire vase bouquet: After prime blooming is past, do not replenish water. Let the bouquet dry right in the vase. This can take weeks to months, depending on local climate.
When flowers are completely dry, store pressed flowers on labeled pages in sheet protectors in a binder. Store dried flower heads in labeled brown paper bags.
Arnold E. Grummer Page 5