Fine Texture
Step 1. Choose a piece of cloth with a very fine weave, such as bed sheeting, and cut close to the size of the paper sheet you’re texturing.
Step 2. Make a full-sized sheet of paper, following the basic papermaking procedure through step 6 (see page 54), but don’t put on the cover screen. Instead, lay the fabric over the new paper sheet and apply the sponge to remove some water. Leave the fabric on the sheet throughout all the remaining papermaking steps.
Step 3. Remove the piece of bed sheet carefully after the paper sheet dries. Examine the paper sheet’s surface closely and move your fingertips across it to feel the texture.
Coarse Texture
Step 1. Choose a piece of cloth with a pronounced, rough, dimensional surface. Perhaps you can find cloth that is ribbed, such as corduroy. Cut a piece close to the size of the paper sheet you’re texturing.
Step 2. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 in the previous section.
The colored strips were textured by the grout pattern on the back of a ceramic tile (shown underneath), then pulp-layered onto the surface of a white sheet of paper.
Embossing
A good subject for spirited debate over coffee would be, “Where does texturing end and embossing begin?” They are similar in that both impact the surface of handmade paper, but embossing raises or lowers the surface in a particular shape or pattern, beyond what would be considered the paper’s normal surface. You could think of embossing as exaggerated texturing, and it does indeed add a fresh dimension to paper. In commercial papers, embossing is often done to paper after it is manufactured. Here is a way to do it as the paper is made.
Step 1. Select a rough or patterned surface to use as an embossing plate. Prepare the pulp and make a full-sized sheet of paper, following the basic papermaking procedure through step 6 (see page 54), but don’t put on the cover screen.
Step 2. Place the embossing plate on the surface of the newly formed wet sheet. Carefully press down on the plate, observing how the new sheet’s pulp rises into the embossing plate’s open areas.
Step 3. Put the cover screen over the new sheet and embossing plate. Leave the embossing plate in place as you continue making the paper. Handle the sheet carefully, because any shifting of the embossing plate will distort the embossing.
Step 4. Replace the top and bottom wet couch sheets with dry ones before pressing the sheet. With the embossing plate still in place, put the new sheet and couch sheets under pressure in a press or under weight of any kind.
Step 5. Remove the dry sheet carefully, followed by the embossing piece. This should result in an excellently embossed sheet.
Crafty Tip
Craft stores offer a great number of metal embossing plates, as well as plastic stencils, many of which can be used for embossing handmade paper as it is being made. Also consider using small, reasonably flat jewelry or other such items you might find around the house and apply them in the same ways as you would an embossing plate. You also can find embossed felts at most craft stores. Instead of a cover screen, put an embossed felt over a newly formed sheet and leave it on through final drying.
This larger embossing plate can produce a nice facing for a greeting card.
Screen Block Out: Windows
In papermaking, where the water goes, the fiber goes. Consequently, if you block off part of your screen’s surface, the water won’t go there and neither will the fibers. If you want to make a sheet half the size of your hand mold, simply cover half your screen with a solid material. If you want an open space in the middle, place some solid material (such as thin wood, foam core, or plastic) cut to the size and shape you desire in the middle of your screen. It’s another world to explore.
Step 1. Cut out an image from a foam food tray or a thin board (see page 80). For your first experiment, try something easy like a heart, square, or other simple shape. The size must be smaller than the paper-making screen.
Step 2. Blend the pulp and set the assembled mold into the water. Place the cut-out image on the screen wherever you wish. Hold it down firmly, so no pulp will run under it.
Step 3. Pour the pulp into the deckle using your other hand. If this gets too difficult, ask someone to help you, especially in the next step.
Step 4. Keep the image firmly on the screen while lifting the hand mold out of the water. Hold it level while the water drains.
Step 5. Remove the paper and screen from the mold and set them on a drain pan.
Let water drain for several minutes. Carefully remove the cut-out shape from the screen. Take care that the pulp around the edges of the image doesn’t rise with the image. If you used a foam food tray, you can insert a pin at a slant into the image to help lift it.
Step 6. Lower a cover screen over the new sheet and complete the papermaking process.
Planning Ahead
If you like to make greeting cards, think about how the placement of an opening might work in your favor. For instance, when the paper is folded in half, a shaped opening in front might become a window for words or images inside the card.
Super 3-D Window Card
This project uses the screen block out technique described on the previous page. Use the finished book as a child’s toy, and add words to make it a book about shapes. Or use it as a greeting card or art gift for an adult.
Materials
Papermaking supplies (see page 25)
Square molds, about 5″ square (see Tip)
Cookie cutters or pie-tin molds (see pages 80–81) for interior shapes
Clear tape or needle and thread for joining pages
Crafty Tip
Square molds can be made from old picture frames with the glass and backing removed, or square containers such as milk cartons. Or you can wing it by setting up four sponges in a square shape. Whatever will hold the pulp in place is fair game!
Instructions
1. As described on the previous page, place the cookie cutter directly in the center of the mold and pour the pulp. Do this for each page, each time with a different shape, in a nice variety of colors.
2. Blot and dry the papers.
3. If keeping the rough edges, attach the pages along the sides using tape. If trimming the edges, you can stitch them together with needle and thread instead. Stitching works better on cut edges, as the thread can catch on rough edges.
Joined by invisible tape, sheets with assorted windows can make a surprising accordion-fold book.
Deckle Division
Deckle division is simply dividing your hand mold’s deckle into two or more compartments. In an undivided deckle, you can pour only one kind or color of pulp. In a deckle divided into two separate compartments, you can pour in two kinds of colors of pulp, one in each compartment. If you remove the divider while the two pulps are draining (after the mold is lifted from the water), the two pulps will flow into each other. This can produce dramatic effects, resulting in a single sheet made of two different pulps.
For the deckle divider, use a piece of foam core or cut what you need from a piece of foam food board (the kind meat or pastries are packaged on). Measure and cut it to fit snugly inside the deckle as shown. Once you’ve prepared the deckle divider, the rest is easy.
Step 1. Blend two different pulp colors, one at a time, and pour them into separate containers.
Step 2. Slide the divided deckle into the vat. Gently pour one pulp into half of the deckle and the second pulp into the other half. Agitate the pulp gently in both compartments.
Step 3. Lift the mold up and out of the water with one hand. When ¼ to ½ of the deckle’s pulp has drained, use your other hand to quickly pull the foam divider straight up and out. The portions of the pulps not drained will flow into each other, forming a single sheet.
Step 4. Allow all the water to drain out and complete the papermaking process as usual.
Dividing the deckle is not hard, yet it opens wide many doors to creativity and unusual, striking handmade sheets.
Crafty Tips
If you are unable to lift the hand mold with one hand, get someone to help; or lift the mold and set it quickly on a surface and then lift the divider.
This technique will produce a two-sided sheet. On one side, the line where the two pulps meet will be indistinct or almost nonexistent (above). On the other, it will likely be sharply defined (at right).
Sheet Layering
This technique has almost everything in common with pulp layering (see page 78), except here you are dealing with an entire sheet. This requires adept, more careful handling, but sheet layering offers its own effects, including two-sided sheets. This is also a good technique to remember when it’s necessary to patch a very weak sheet or a sheet with thin spots or holes in it. It is another field that offers a great deal of exploration. The basic introduction that follows can get you started on your own unique experiments.
Step 1. Prepare white pulp and make a sheet of paper through step 5 (see page 54), but don’t put the cover screen on the new sheet. Set aside the sheet to drain.
Step 2. Prepare colored pulp and make a second thin sheet of paper. When you lift the screen and colored sheet from the mold, drag it screen-side-down over a wrung-out sponge to pull some of the water out of the sheet. Then, turn the screen over so the colored sheet is on the bottom side. The sheet is not likely to fall from the screen unless it is exceedingly wet or very thick.
Step 3. Lower the colored sheet down onto the white one, perfectly matching the edges of the two sheets. (Yes, perfectly matching the edges is difficult; just give it your best shot.)
Step 4. Complete the papermaking process as usual. The result will be a sheet that is white on one side and colored on the other. In future experiments, combine any two types of sheets you think would be exciting.
Simple foldouts are an easy and dramatic way to use sheet-layered paper. The cutout can be made from any symmetrical shape. Just trace half of the shape anywhere on the front of the folded sheet layered paper, and make a dotted line from top to bottom down the middle of your shape. Cut along the traced line, and score and fold along the dotted line. (See the template on page 199.)
How to Make Cards That Sell
Few people are as productive as Maria Nerius, an author, editor, papermaker, craft industry consultant, media hostess, and more. Having once made crafts for a living, Maria paid attention to how things sold. She spends much of her professional life encouraging designers and crafters to learn how to make money on their crafts. Here’s her short list for making cards that sell:
You can have the cutest cards in town, but if you’re using unpopular colors, the cards will not sell. Make paper and cards with current color trends! A trip to the card or gift shop can inspire fresh, innovative ideas.
Make a professional presentation. Display cards in clear, plastic sleeves. Make prices clear with stickers or signage.
Offer a quantity discount. If you sell one for $2.95, offering four for $10 often nets the $10 purchase.
Make cards people need. Popular card categories are birthday, wedding, baby, and thank you.
You’re Invited!
For some fun invitations or thank you notes, try this simple design. Use the template on page 200 to make your own template out of food board (for instructions, see page 80). When the paper is dry, write a personal message and fold on the lines shown on the template (folded cards will be 3½″ × 5″). Seal and mail with a first class stamp, or send in a larger self-sealing envelope.
Watermarking
Sometimes, when paper is held up to light, an image can be seen in the paper. This image is a watermark, a spot where the paper is thinner and more light can pass through. If you can make your paper thinner in selected areas, you can make a watermark.
Watermarks have a fascinating history. They have been an item of mystique since 1282 and are still used for identification, authentication, anti-counterfeit, anti-fraud, and artistic expression. Commercially, watermark technology can be pretty advanced, producing complex watermarks that appear shaded and dimensional like a photograph. A look-alike watermark can be added chemically after the paper is dry.
Fortunately for home papermakers, there’s also effective primitive technology for making watermarks. Bend a wire into an image, or form an image with something flat and not too broad. Secure it to the face of a papermaking screen and make a sheet. Where the image was on the screen, the paper will be thinner. When held to the light, the watermark will be revealed.
Two Toothpicks
This is a simple exercise in watermarking, though it can deliver a delightful and clear mark. Primarily, it gives you the sense of how the first mark was sewn onto the face of a papermaking screen. The materials are easy to get and easy to use.
Step 1. Assemble some flat toothpicks, a needle and thread, and a piece of window screen as big as your papermaking screen. The window screen is suggested because you might not want to use your papermaking screen for your first effort.
Step 2. Arrange the toothpicks on the surface of the window screen in a simple design; for instance, the form of a V. With the needle and thread, tack the toothpicks to the screen, rather than sewing along their entire length. A tack at each end and one in the middle should suffice.
Step 3. Following the basic hand papermaking steps (see page 52), make a sheet of paper, using the window screen as the papermaking screen. Take care when removing the sheet from the screen. When the sheet is dry, hold it to the light and behold your watermark.
Plastic Letters
For a more complex watermark, try forming a message in your paper. “Smile” is easy for a first effort. A personal favorite is “Don’t Panic.” We went with “Top Secret!” Choose some ½″-tall plastic, self-adhesive letters from an office supply store. When using thicker letters, the paper you make will need to be thick enough so the letters won’t break the surface. The idea is to experiment to find what works — and don’t forget to have fun!
Step 1. Apply the letters to the face of the papermaking screen, leaving ¼″ between them. Will the letters stick? Usually. Roll over them with a rolling pin after they are on the screen. How long will they stay after being dunked in water? I’ve had varying luck, with some sticking for a long time and others a short time.
Step 2. Follow the basic papermaking steps (see page 52), using the screen with the watermark to make a sheet of paper. Be aware that paper thickness is of great importance when using plastic letters for a watermark. If the paper’s too thick, the mark doesn’t show. If too thin, the mark makes a hole in the paper. Keep adjusting the amount of pulp until the thickness is right. Then, write down your formula for future use.
Crafty Tips
You can use contact cement in addition to (or instead of) needle and thread. It can be messy, though, so use sparingly. If cement fills any screen pores to either side of the toothpicks, the water flow through the screen will be affected, to the detriment of the watermark.
If the watermark in the final sheet is too obvious, make the next sheet a little thicker. If it is too dim or hard to see, make the next sheet thinner.
For a more complex, custom watermark, try forming your own designs with bent wire. A humble plastic twist-tie can be effective, or use something else that is easy to bend, such as coiled solder. Use needle nose pliers to shape the latter. Coiled solder is so malleable it can be bent around images, such as cookie cutters, to form shapes.
Board Drying
As you can well imagine, the way you dry your paper can affect what the paper surface looks like. Board drying is a very old technique, practiced by early Chinese papermakers. The surface used in this technique need not be a board. It can be any water-safe surface that appeals to you. It’s a good idea to spray the surface before you start, to lessen release problems. You can use silicone (read the label about good ventilation), c
ooking sprays, or petroleum jelly. Keep the coverage light, though, and wipe off all excess release aid before applying the sheet.
Step 1. Select a board or other flat surface at least 2″ longer and wider than the paper sheet you’re making. Make sure the surface is clean.
Step 2. Prepare pulp and make a sheet of handmade paper through step 5 (see page 54). Allow water to drain naturally from the sheet for 2 minutes. This will provide some stabilization of the sheet.
Step 3. Pick up the new sheet and screen and turn them over. Gently put the new sheet down onto the board’s surface. Use a sponge, couch sheet, and press bar as usual to pull as much water out of the sheet as possible.
Step 4. Peel off the couch sheet carefully. Leave the new paper sheet in place until it is dry, then remove it from the board. If you have trouble lifting the dry sheet off the board, try working it off by inserting a knife blade between the sheet and the board at various places around the sheet. Then continue to lift gently.
Bored? Try a Board!
Arnold E. Grummer Page 8