RECYCLING MY MANUSCRIPT - I Made Paper

I have wanted to make paper for a lot of years, but never found the right moment to gather everything I needed and get down to it. This weekend I decided that I wanted to make paper to use on the covers I am making for the cookbook project we're doing in my Yahoo group. I wasn't sure that I wanted to use torn up newspaper for my pulp, so I decided to use all of the sheets of paper from so many revisions of my first book (I'm on my third now, so you can imagine the volume I have from edits). I thought it would be neat to know that, besides my efforts in making the paper, a little more of me was put into the process.






I love how it turned out. For half of the batch, I threw a piece of sage card stock into the blender and got a faded, beautiful green hue. I also added to the blender, various colors and types of flower petals from my garden, and some pretty, long leaves. I put some eucalyptus oil in the mix as well and the paper now has a beautiful scent to it.
I managed to make 12- 8x10 pieces of two different hues.

This was a very calming experience. I really felt at one with nature, you know, I was recycling, I was using things from my garden that were about to need dead-heading, it was a rainy day and the doors were open with a gentle breeze cooling the kitchen and the scent of new fallen rain pleasing my nose. I started to contemplate the process used by early man in making the first sheets of paper or papyrus.

For weeks I've been searching the Internet, looking for people who make and sell paper. I was stunned by the prices, not to mention the shipping added to it, although now I understand them both. That's when I decided I could make it cheaper myself, and this way, I get to put in the items and change the colors as I like. I think I'm going to be doing a lot of this.