Making Paper With Kids

I love to make recycled paper.  It's an earth friendly craft.  The new paper can be utilized many different and creative ways.  It's messy and fun!

I love to make paper with kids even more!  At this point I have made paper with way more than a thousand kids and a few dozen adults.

Papermaking is a great activity for close to the end of the school year.  You might even want to do it outside, as it involves lots of water and can be messy.

Here's what I use:  lots of used paper in various colors, a blender, water, dishpan, towel, drying paper or thin towels, sponge, mold and deckle--you can buy these at many craft stores or online.  That's the only special tool and the wooden ones last FOREVER!

Here's what I do:

1.  Tear paper to the size of postage stamps
2.  Add about a cup of paper to blender and fill with water.  Blend.  The more you blend the finer it becomes.  I like big bits of paper still showing.
3.  Pour the pulp from blender into the dishpan that is already 1/3 full of water.
{You may want to repeat 2 & 3 several times.}
4.  Place the mold and deckle in the water and pull it out with pulp on the screen.
5.  Turn this over on a paper and dab the back of the screen to get lots of water out.  You have gotten enough water out when you can lift the screen without tearing the sheet of pulp.
6.  Hang these to dry--a clothesline is great for this!
7.  Peel the recycled paper off the other paper.  (I use drying papers many times and then eventually recycle them!)

You can make many amazing projects with recycled paper.  I love to use the paper to make cards, journal covers, and collages.  The recycled paper is very absorbent so if you paint, don't use too much water, and I don't recommend markers but other pens work fine.

I hope you find some joy in papermaking or any artsy project.