Collecting rose petals

Rose buds

I have an old rose bush growing in my garden. Every year without fail it blooms producing the most wonderful roses. The scent reminds me of candy crush. This time of year it produces about 20 roses.

Collecting the roses

I cut the roses and place them into a jar with water. They last a few days before I am going to dry them.

Drying the rose petals
This can take a few weeks, I lay them out in a tub in the sunshine. Next I bring them indoors and place them between two pieces of paper, cardboard and a heavy book on top.

When the rose petals have fully dried and all the moisture removed. I will put them into my latest paper making project.
A lovely reminder of summer.

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Blowing in the wind

After I finished making the paper I decided to put it onto the washing line to dry. This is something I have not tried before. Success I decided, the sheets were drying fast. However I left them for half and hour and when I returned, the breeze had grown stronger. I then had to retrieve half of them from around the garden. Luckily they were fine and are now back inside drying the normal way. Adding the dried rose petals to the pulp. Checking for any holes before couching (my new word).

Green Reveal

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...

Making paper and adding Turmeric

Today I tried adding Turmeric to the pulp before couching (transferring the wet sheets from the mould). I loved the idea of producing a yellow colour that is natural. The paper has a lovely shade of yellow and the fibres held together well. Holding the paper up to the light I was able to see how transparent it looked. The fibres had bonded well together and I was so excited to see the end product once the paper had fully dried. Paper on frame held up to the light I used the method of putting the mould and deckle into the tub of water and gently lifting it out of the water. Lots of the water drained away back into the tub of water. After lifting the deckle out of the water I carefully remove the frame. This gives the deckle edge that I think is a wonderful look to handmade paper. I lay the pieces out on the window ledges, still on their cloths and waited 24 hours for them to dry out. Once they had dried, I ironed them with a cool iron t...

Lemon Tree Paper Creator

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