Anarchy Crafts: How To Make Paper For Free In 5 Easy Steps

How to Make Handmade Paper Introduction:
Paper making has been around since the DAWN OF TIME (about 2,000 years).

The paper making process has been altered many times since 105 A.D. when Ts'ai Lun, a Chinese court official, invented paper. In all probability, Ts'ai mixed mulberry bark, hemp and rags with water, mashed it into a coarse pulp, squeezed out the liquid, and hung the thin mats to dry in the sun. Consequently paper making began humanity's greatest revolution in communications.

Where would we be at without paper? The majority of the information that we have absorbed in the past fifty years has been in written form. What could be more fun than making your own paper by recycling materials from around your home. Everyone can easily benefit from this even those of you who make your own DIY Zines (Stolen Sharpie Revolution: A DIY Zine Resource).

Stuff You Need To Find Around Your Home To Make Paper:

Water
Paper Bits or Shredded Jeans
A Sponge
A Blender
Felt Squares
A tub (ex: big tub aware container)
Mold & Deckle ( Requires some creativity)

What's a Mold & Deckle?
The mold is the screen that you'll use to pull your sheets of paper. The deckle is an empty frame that sits on top of the mold to give your paper a shape and nice straight lines. You can buy these at any art supply store or you can make your own.

Option A: Get some stretcher bars and use a staple gun to attach a screen to the frame. Staple it all around the frame while keeping it taut. The side with the screen on top is the side that you will use for pulling the sheets of paper.Get some small stretcher bars to make the deckle that will sit on top of the mold frame. Remember that a deckle is just an empty frame.

Option B: For the mold use an intact window screen.

Option C: For the mold use a picture frame and staple gun a screen to it.

Now that you have gathered your supplies lets make some paper!! :>)

Step 1: Shred up some paper, about 1 cup worth and put this in the blender along with 3 cups of water to make the pulp. This is just a rough estimate, you want a pulp that is almost liquid but more of a watery-goo.( You can also make pulp from an old pair of jeans just make sure they are shredded into tiny, tiny pieces. Jeans are mostly used to make construction paper.)

Step 2: Fill up your tub about half way with your blended pulp.You will need a lot of pulp! (Make sure that the mold and deckle will fit in your tub.) Stir the mixture around with your hand so no paper settles at the bottom or floats.

Step 3: Here is the fun part!! Take your mold with the screen side on top and place the deckle(empty frame) on top. Then what you want to do is slowly place the mold & deckle in the tub. You will want to first, place it vertically in the tub and slide it into the pulp so it will lay flat at the bottom. (Always keeping the frames touching the bottom of the tub when sliding.) You should stand at the left of the tub and slide the frame towards you.
You can also pour the pulp onto the screen but make sure to still have a tub to catch the excess.

Step 4: Now you want to pull the mold & deckle straight up out of the pulpy solution. The screen filters a lot of the liquid and you are left with fibrous material covering the screen.

Step 5: Place the frame on a flat surface. I usually place a screen over the pulp and press the water out with a sponge. Remove the loose piece of screen and flip the mold over onto a piece of felt. Now take the sponge and vigorously press it against the back of the screen to remove the damp piece of paper you have just made by lifting the mold up.

If it doesn't come off then you either have to much fibber or not enough. (Repeat steps 3-5 until consistency of paper is evenly produced.) If it comes out correctly you can let it dry on a flat surface or hang it up out in the sun to dry.