Paper-making and Autumn Leaves

I recently found Mateo playing in the sand pit next to our bus pretending to make paper with an experimental mix of sand and water. This lead to a discussion about paper, its history, different things in our lives made of paper, and the natural ability of wasps to make their nests from paper. Later that week we created our own paper making project. This is our recipe"ish":

Making the sieve and mold:
My original plan was to make a very simple sieve with pantyhose and a wire hanger, however, I could not find what I needed at hand so in keeping with my vow to keep this project purchase free I ended up finding and using scrap wood, screen, wood screws and staple gun.

To make things easy we cut the four sides of our frame the same size.

Mateo enjoyed measuring to make sure that all pieces were exactly the same.

We then screwed the pieces together and stapled the screen mesh to the frame.

Mateo hammered the staples that poked up for a stronger hold then carefully trimmed the excess mesh from the sides.
The slurry or pulp:

Our ingredients consisted of newspaper, lint, sawdust, leaves and flowers and we later threw in some glitter. Next time I would like experiment with more color variations and sculptural forms, but for our first attempt we kept it simple.
First we shredded the newspaper and mixed the rest of the ingredients together in water.

Then we blended everything together to make the pulp. I recommend small batches at a time.

The pulp should have the consistency of porridge.

Now we are ready to make paper!

Any additional flowers or decorative elements should be added to your sieve first.

Then add the slurry over top. Our frame happened to fit perfectly into our cooler, making it easy to press the water into the underneath container.


We found it easiest to press the water out with our hands.

Once the majority of the water is pressed out, carefully flip the formed paper on to your drying area. We used a combination of felt and newspaper to absorb the excess water in our paper. We covered and then pressed and rolled the paper with rolling pin.

The result will start to resemble thick paper card.

Hang to dry and move on to the next batch.

We dried overnight.

The next day we found leaves we liked around the neighborhood and use them as templates to cut out from our new recycled paper.

Added some watercolor and..

...they ended up gorgeous. We hung them up inside our home. They remind us of the autumn leaves we don't get a chance to see here in Miami. But we'll soon get a chance to admire the changing colors of autumn next week when we take the bus on its first trial run up to North Carolina. Wahoo!


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Recycled Newspaper Baskets

Today in preparation for Easter on Sunday we weaved our very own baskets! I think this was a little over my 5 year old's head. Although he would check in on the basket's progress now and again to snip some paper and give a nod of approval it is probably more a project for children 8 years old and older.

We were inspired by this tutorial, however we made some modifications. For the project you will need: newspaper, scotch tape, duct tape, stapler, school glue and scissors.

The night before we weaved our baskets I prepared the newspaper into folded rolls. The folded rolls should be about 3/4in thick and you will need roughly 9 short folded rolls (approx 2ft. long), which will make up the ribs of the basket and a couple longer folded rolls (approx 4ft. long). I doubled up a couple of the shorter ones to make the longer strips. I then glued these strips and let them dry over night.

Start with your shorter newspaper rolls. Begin by weaving 4 strips together.

Keep on weaving till you have used all of the short strips. This woven surface will make the floor of your basket.

Start to shape the basket by folding the lose ends of the strips upward. Once you have folded each side you can then then weave the long strips through the 'ribs'. To keep my forming basket from unraveling I stapled one end of my horizontal strips on to one of the vertical strips (see above far left).

Keep on weaving and with a little patience a basket will begin to materialize. When the strip you are weaving runs out simply lengthen it by stapling another strip to the end.

When you are finished weaving, fold the ends over and staple or tape them.

Trim off any extra paper.

We added a strip of neon orange duct tape along the rim of our basket for extra durability and to keep the staples from poking out. We also added a handle made of duct tape for more efficient Easter egg gathering. Ribbon would also be beautiful, but we thought duct tape is just a more bit bad-ass.

Happy Merry Easter!

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