Paper bowls

Following the visit to Bilston Craft gallery I got a bit carried away. I made these paper pulp bowls with the children on friday. They took two days to dry out. I am thinking of making some more to be Christmas packaging.

papermaking

I tried papermaking with T and I. Here is T mixing up the pulp. His little sister aged 2 helped too. They both formed sheets. We all ended up soaked! But we have made some nice sheets of paper to use in collages.

Interesting to find that a two years and 4 month old can make paper sheets just fine - her main issue was taking turns with the frame. We used dyed bamboo based pulp from Papershed and mixed it with some white linters. We piled the wet sheets onto wet cloths lying in a large baking tray. When finished I took the pile of wet cloths and placed them between two sheets of hardboard in the garden and stood on it to squeeze out excess water. I did this bit without kids! We were able to then peg the couching cloths up on a clothes rack and the paper dried overnight.