Handmade Paper

Making your own paper can be a heady and therapeutic ride. When you can actually see something that was trash transform into something useful, right before your eyes.
My own journey on the crinkly road of paper started from my youthful need to do something to save the planet. And I wanted to literally see my efforts doing something positive. That's how I stumbled upon paper-making. Back then I thought of it as recycling. We didn't have a recycling programme those many years ago in Singapore. To be able to take things out from the waste stream and ease up pressure on our landfills was a good thing for a girl growing up in Singapore. We are a tiny island about 24km by 48km, with the scarcity of space is indelibly stamped on our psyche.

I found paper to be a very accepting medium into which you could add much. Like leaves, grass and flowers. The paper you end up with has wonderful, colourful inclusions.









Or, if you were inclined to recycled papers of different colours, you'd end up with a lighter shade of the predominant colour. So long as you don't mix too many other colours with that particular one. This sheet one is made mainly from magazine pages.




This one is from yellow pages... A fun thing to do with printed paper is to leave some of the pulp not blended beyond recognition and then sprinkle some broken words or letters on the the pulp before you pull the paper out of the vat.

And this from office waste coloured with a the crushed up pigments from dried out
poster paint tubes (recycling again!).

The pulp that forms paper when it dries also lends itself to being embossed. I did this by drying the pulp on kitschy plastic tablecloths with puffy patterns on it.

Paper pulp is a playful medium that not only lets you add things to it, emboss it, colour it. It also lets you shape it. Laura from Wildethyme used oil splatter screens as deckles to drain the water from the mushed up paper. It makes funky round paper. I've never seen anyone do that before and the results are wonderful. The very roundness of the sheet frames the paper as a work of art.

There are quite a few big box suppliers of handmade paper out there but somehow, I find the sheets from individual paper makers have a different energy to them. They are more textural and perhaps these people tell the story behind what went into the paper, these sheets are more beautiful to me.

If you are looking for special handmade papers for your crafting or scrap booking projects here are some Etsy paper makers.

Wildethyme has a brilliant and informative site with artful recycled and plant fiber papers.
Disturbedpenguinpoo has value for money sheets if you need a lot.
Lazy Sunday Crafts has great coloured embossed papers.

A Spade, A Hoe & A Piece of Fertile Ground

Following from my previous post "One Billion Trees" I thought I'd really ought to take my own advice and start planting. No point preaching something if I wasn't prepared to do it myself.
The slight hitch is that I live in an apartment and there are only are two 2.5 m by 1.7 m balconies. Not a lot of space for a tree. Sorry, let me rephrase that, not enough space for ANOTHER tree.

With a faithful & sturdy four-foot something Privet standing solidly out on the back balcony and a graceful weeping Japanese Maple ( just budding and about to sprout leaves) on the front balcony, I think we were close to hitting our weight quota. So I've decided the best thing to do is to plant grasses and flowers instead.


You know, one of the most wonderful things about living in a place with four seasons is the pace of things. That you get to see things change quickly. You see plants grow from tiny pinhead sized seeds to five-foot tall Honeysuckle climbers with coral orange flowers. Then, in a few months, they fruit and you get to harvest the seeds. To start all over again next year.
Can't really do this within the time frame of a year in the tropics. But, I digress....

The thing I can do at this time and in this space, is to plant grasses and flowers. To grow green leaves to help feed the planet with oxygen whilst taking away the carbon dioxide and to feed the human spirit with the bursting colour and beauty of flower and foliage. And then plant trees wherever I can, whenever I can.

Last year, I'd harvested the seeds of sunny Californian Poppies, blood red Poppies, purple Geraniums, Vanilla scented Heliotropes and really tall grasses, whose species I don't know. But they looked so densely bushy with those tall gorgeous flower heads, I couldn't help but pick up the seeds from the paths during an autumn walk at the The Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver.

Let us hope they grow up and grow well.
And as they sprout and grow, I will water them, feed them, hope for enough sun and clement weather. And I'll take heart from a song I remember John Denver singing on Sesame Street so many years ago. It's called The Garden Song and I believe it goes like this...(click on this link to hear the melody)

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Pulling weeds and pickin' stones
Man is made from dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
To my body and my brain
To the music from the land

Plant your rows straight and long
Thicker than with pray'r and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care
Old crow watchin' hungrily
From his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free
As that feathered thief up there

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

'Til the rain comes tumbling down