Lemon Tree Paper Creator

  I collected lots of wild flowers, including Buttercups.  These are so pretty at this time of year. 💓 Once I have strained the water away from the deckle as much as possible. I add the flowers that have been dried.  I dry them by spreading them out onto thin paper and add a heavy book.  The process takes around 2 weeks.  I find these much more effective in the paper pulp.   When adding the flowers, I gently press them into the pulp so that they will not fall out once the paper has dried. 😄 I then allow the new paper with flowers to dry in the usual method.  This takes around a further 24 hours.

Today is cold and dull even though its May!  ☔ I collected old newspapers from everyone, word has got round about making my paper. On a whim I added some blue food colouring dye to the mixture 💧 The colour looked lovely, swirling around the bowl.  Whoops I didn't wear gloves and two hours later my hands are still BLUE 🙏 The sheets are now drying, I was not impressed with how they looked, the recycled material looks dull and the colour has turned grey tone. 😕 Lets see what tomorrow brings when the paper has dried 👀

 Twenty four hours is a long time to wait to see the results.  I am running out of room to dry all the pages and decided to try stacking the sheets inside old paper.   Paper sheets stacked onto each other The bottom sheets didn't really dry and so I placed them around my desk and window ledges. Having a sneaky peek to see if they have dried All good so far even though the sheets are not properly dried I was happy the new method of using pencil shavings has worked.  The effect on some of the sheets was amazing.  Especially with the little bits of colour that came out of the pencil sharpener.  I used watercolour pencils so that the colours would not run into my paper. Watercolour pencil shavings The sheets produced this time had a lovely hint of green.  The paper was so much thinner than last time as I had reused some of the old paper and added it to the new pulp.  I did this by getting out all the water using a strainer.  I then mashed th...

  I tried different methods of drying petals.  I had some flowers sent to me for my birthday.  I couldn't bear to see them just go into the brown garden bin.  I tied them upside down on coat hangers.  I have them hanging in the window.  This is to make the water content in each flower evaporate.  I have had them up for about two weeks now. I also tried microwaving some petals from my garden.  I personally wouldn't recommend this method.  It is very quick, however after a week, the odour from they was pretty rank.  They all bunched together and did not look very inviting. I dried the next batch of petals using the traditional method of placing them between paper and under a heavy book.  This took about two weeks.  I was really pleased with the results.  As you can see the comparison, the natural dried petals were so pretty and smelt wonderful.  I have used them in my green paper mixture. See the difference side by side...

I added green tissue paper to my mixture.  I was really pleased with the colour result and the pour onto the deckle was easy and smooth.   Looks like pea soup!  I cant wait to see how the paper dries.

I added some petals from the garden.  The paper is different sizes and thickness.   I am happy with the end product.  I tried several ways including different screens and how much mulch  to include.   The old envelopes I used can be seen in the final product, which I quite like. I did run out of drying areas, I only have so many window ledges and tables. Right next time I am going to make some seed paper and see how that turns out.