Making your own paper: A step by step guide!

Do you want to get started with making paper yourself? Great! Below I explain step by step how to proceed.

Materials for making your own paper

To make your own paper you don't need much, with a screen frame , large container for the water (your screen frame should fit in here, the container doesn't have to be very deep). paper pulp and possibly dried flowers for decoration you can get started! A blender is optional if you want to use old paper scraps. Below some more details about the supplies:

• Screen frame

To make your own paper you need a frame/screen frame. This is a frame with a thin fabric with small holes stretched in it. They come in different sizes, depending on the size of paper you want to make you can choose a size! Please note, if you choose a larger A4 frame for example, it is difficult to make small cards of A5 size because the paper pulp automatically spreads over the entire mold. You could of course cut the finished paper to the desired size afterwards, but then you won't have those nice rustic frayed edges on your paper! That's why I work with a screen frame in A5 size, which is just the right size for small drawings and greeting cards.

You have screen frames with both a single frame and a double frame, with a double frame you can press the paper extra and spread it well over the entire mold so that the paper pulp is spread evenly over the entire mold. This ensures that the edges of the homemade paper are super straight when you use a double frame. I work with a single frame myself because I personally find rustic frayed edges very beautiful with homemade paper, it gives it just that little bit more character! With a single frame you get those frayed edges automatically because the paper pulp is not pressed to the edges by a second frame.

• Paper pulp 100% cellulose

A frame is essential, adding 100% cellulose paper pulp to your recycled paper mix is optional but I personally find it very useful! You can make paper with just scraps of recycled paper, put them in a blender until they are pulped and then use this as a base for your new handmade paper. What I do recommend however is adding some cellulose fiber paper pulp to that mix as well. Natural cellulose fibers are what makes paper so strong, even when wet the fibers do not lose their strength. Often normal paper only consists of a small amount of cellulose, so when you pulp this and use it for your own handmade paper it can sometimes feel a lot more brittle than you would like. By adding a small amount of the 100% cellulose pulp your homemade paper will immediately feel a lot stronger! In my experience the pieces of paper made with the extra cellulose addition look a lot nicer.

How to make your own paper

You start by preparing your paper pulp. The difference between old paper scraps and paper made from 100% cellulose was already discussed above. You can squeeze a sheet of 100% cellulose by hand in a container with water to a pulp, you can use the same container in which you will scoop the paper later. As long as the screen fits in it, it will be fine! Fill the container with a layer of water and knead the sheets of cellulose well. If necessary, use a mixer/blender to get the pulp as fine as possible. There should be no large lumps floating in the water, you will see these on your paper. The rule is, the finer you make the pulp, the less relief there will be in your paper. In the video below you can see that I scooped the paper with still quite coarse lumps of paper in the water, it just depends on your preference! Are you using leftover old paper? You cannot knead these into pulp by hand, you really need to use a blender or hand blender for this. Tear the paper into the smallest pieces possible and put them in a bowl of water. Let it soak for a while and then put the mix in the blender or go through the paper soup with a hand blender. Keep going until no coarse pieces of paper are visible anymore! Then add the pulp to the bowl of water in which you are going to scoop the paper.

Add color

In the video I add homemade natural paint from avocado peels and pits to the paper pulp soup. I have written a blog about how to make that natural paint from avocado yourself! By adding that paint the final paper gets a light pink tint, this is of course not necessary you can also just make white paper. You can also add dried lavender, calendula leaves, glitter etc. to the paper soup. Basically anything you think would be nice to see in your paper! I am a fan of lavender flower myself, this gives the paper a nice grainy natural look.

Shimmy shimmy

Is your soup the desired color and are there no more large pieces of paper floating in it? Then you can start scooping! Before I put the scoop into the container with the scoop, I stir the pulp well through the entire container with water with my hands. Then I push the scoop into the container with an angle and by 'shimmy shimmy' it, or moving it back and forth with my hands while the scoop is underwater, the pulp comes to the surface. I continue with the shimmy shimmy movement until I think that enough pulp is evenly distributed above the frame. I take the scoop out of the water in a smooth movement and let it drain on the corner of the container with water. Especially in the beginning, there will probably still be scoops where you can still see the mesh, so there is not enough pulp there. You can simply put the scoop back in the container and start shimmying again until your scoop is filled with pulp everywhere! Do holes keep appearing? Then it is possible that there is not enough pulp left in the water to make another sheet of paper. You can always add extra pulp afterwards if this is the case.

Flipping the scoop frame

If your scoop frame has largely leaked, you can flip the paper onto a piece of fabric. I use fabric scraps from the cotton starter embroidery kit, but you can also use an old sheet, for example. As long as the fabric is nice and thin and has a not too coarse relief, you can dry the paper well on it. You will see the relief of the fabric slightly in the final dried paper. You lay the piece of fabric ready on the floor and turn your scoop frame with the side where the pulp is on the fabric. Don't be afraid when flipping the scoop frame, it may seem scary, but the pulp will not fall off quickly, you can take it very slowly! Then you can dab the back of the scoop frame with a tea towel to remove as much water as possible and to press the pulp well into the piece of fabric. When most of the water has been dabbed out, you can carefully remove the scoop frame, the pulp has adhered to the fabric and will now remain there.

Drying the paper

Both the fabric and the paper pulp will still be very wet, you can leave it on the floor to dry, just be careful with pets that might spontaneously take a walk over your homemade paper, I speak from experience 😅. You can also just pick up the lap fabric with the wet paper and hang it vertically to dry. The adhesion to the fabric is very strong, only when it is completely dry can you pull the paper off and even then there will be some resistance. I often leave the paper hanging overnight and feel if everything is really dry before I remove it from the fabric.

Homemade paper is nice, but what can you do with it?

On the paper I made a small text with calligraphy letters, printed a stamp with stamp ink, made a mini watercolor painting and I glued dried flowers on it and framed and hung it. Actually everything you do with normal paper can also be done with handmade paper, only then you have a much more unique base with character!

Do you want to get started with making paper yourself? I have put together a complete DIY package for making paper with all the supplies that I personally liked to work with!