The kids and I are always about recycling. We like to do our part for the environment so when I suggested that we make our own paper they were totally up for it. Ive read online of different ways you can do it and often times when you watch videos they tell you to have a bunch of equipment at hand such as a mould & deckle, which we don’t have unfortunately. Although it does give you tips on how to make one 🤔 will Pin this for next time lol!
The kids started off by collecting some old scraps of paper and recycling items like egg cartons and boxes. They then tore as much as they could into small pieces.
We threw it all into our blender and added water until the paper was covered. We had to keep adding paper as it was very sloppy. Eventually it became like a paste so we stopped adding paper.
The kids then scooped the paste out onto some parchment paper that was laid on a towel. There was quite a lot of water in the paste so you have to make sure you have something underneath to catch any that comes out of the paste. We then rolled the paste out between two pieces of parchment.
This part was tricky because the paste kept squeezing out of the parchment paper. We didn’t want it too thick either but it did look like it was thinning out so we had to fill any gaps in between. It did look pretty damp and dark before we put it aside to dry out.
The kids were worried it was going to stay dark and they wouldn’t be able to draw on it. So we left it as long as possible. We have a warm room downstairs which we use for drying laundry so we put it there and left it for 48 hours. Realistically if you have your paper somewhere really warm it should only take 24 hours but we left ours for a couple days just to be on the safe side. The kids forgot about it which was good so it was a surprise when we finally did go and check on it! I had checked on it after 24 hours and it wasn’t quite dry enough but like I said you may be able to dry it out quicker.
We were actually impressed with the final result! It was more like card stock and broke off easier than regular paper but the kids enjoyed cutting it and it did turn out a lighter shade so they were able to draw and write on it.
I think we may try this experiment again once we have all the right equipment but this was a fun way to try it. Now the kids know its possible to make your own paper Im pretty sure they’ll want to do this one again. 👍🏻
Definitely one for the art scrapbooks 🙂 ❤️❤️
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