Kid Size Paper making

I am a really bad mom and I don't share. My girls want to make paper but I get frustrated showing them how to work my larger screens and the big vat of pulp, SOOO I was really excited when I was perusing the clearance toys are at Target last week and stumbled upon a truly cool toy.

National Geographic™ Paper Recycling Kit

Wow -- What fun. I won't give this a glowing review because, well it is a toy and not everything works great BUT the girls had a blast swirling already pulped recycled paper thought the hand crank blender and the deckled screens did work really well and are just the right size for little people. I think I might have struggled if I did not know a bit about paper making, the pulp did not want to couch off the screen easily and modifications were made. I wish I had been able to find two of them because patience is not a four year olds virtue.

Rainy Day Fun -- Insect Window Shade

I won't claim that this idea sprang into being with out influence. While I was out trolling my favorite blogs I saw a post at More Ways to Waste Time pointing to mobile made out of old books, these mobiles were more elaborate and I think they used glue. They were lovely so I tucked the idea in the back of my head and there it was waiting to be made. So thunder and lightening crashing and flashing in the back ground the girls and I set about doing what we do best, making a mess and calling it ART.

We started with a lonely window.

We found one of my thift store books and began to remove the pages, lots o fun ripping up an old book.

We found all the summer bugs that you would not want in the house and started to cut out stacks of them with the Accu cut.

We found the crochet yarn (could not believe it when I ask my seven year old were it was and she actually walked away and returned with it), pulled off a length, halved it and tied a loop at the fold.

We punched 2 small holes in each insect (mostly me, cause the girls can't do the punch yet). Here is hoping slight friction will keep these paper insects in place for longer than a day.

We started stringing the insects onto the crochet yarn through the 2 holes. We placed the finished string onto the tension rod I picked up at Target this am.

All in all this was a great deal of fun, made the computer corner a bit more crafty and keep my girls from making me crazy while the rain keep us out of the pool. Good Fun.

Just Added: So many of you have requested the insects we made up a kit of insects & a bird or two.

Pretty Mold

I think this is mold, it may be something even better. In May, I was gung ho paper girl, but with the end of the school year and the start of summer I forgot some stuff, like this. It was fabric scraps sitting in soda ash and dye, what it now is your guess. Looks like it has been retting, I think it is done. I will give it a good wash and throw it in to the critter, my next batch of paper is purple, I hope.

Earth Day - Recycled Paper

Watcha doin' for Earth Day?

I will be making paper, lots of it hopefully. I am no expert but my paper has gone from UGG!! to OHH! My mom even wants a chance to play. I am on my fourth batch and they keep getting better. The green and the pink papers are from the last 2 batches. I don't want to put on my super cool tee shirt yet but I am really proud of this last batch of green.


Last year we purchased an Accu Cut and I love it for upcycling, cutting fabric patches and now for making cards.


These are proto types of upcoming products. The Thank You cards will be included in your orders and the Circle Cut Card will be available when I get a few more made (and the envelopes arrive).

Start thinking now about how you want to spend your Earth Day. Our tradition is to plant a tree and eat cake (Happy Birthday Bryan).

Upcycling & The "Critter"

Wow, Talk about March Madness. I am barly recovered from the Original Sewing Expo and the Georgia Quilt Council's Spring Conference but I had to start playing with my newest toy for recycling.

My company creates trash, we recycle the cardboard and the office paper but what am I supposed to do with the fabric scraps? I save them, they can't be trash! Last fall I started looking for a solution for reusing the scraps of fabric from my sewing projects and from the first rip on each new bolt of fabric we get in. By luck and providence I went to a paper making workshop at the High Museum of Art, I asked the teacher, Katy Dement, if I could use fabric scraps for paper, of course! ONLY I need a very expensive piece of equipment called a Hollander Beater. Thwarted by the expense I started a search for a less expensive version, I found a great Yahoo Group and an awesome artist, Mark Landers, he makes a machine called the "Critter" and he will ship this handmade work of art, which is also a Hollander Beater, all the way from New Zealand. My "critter" arrived in December, just in time for me to ignore it until NOW!

Last week the weather was warm enough to play in large quantities of water and scraps of paper and fabric. Here are some shots form my first go around. I am completely the novice paper maker who tries to ski the Alps on her first go out. I dumped the carefully weight 2 pound of multi colored fabric scraps into the machine filled it with water and waited for the magic.

What I got was 8 - 10 hours of watching my poor machine struggle, clogging up and stalling, while making a lovely bunch of goop. The goop did make some pretty gray paper but I was frustrated. My great Yahoo Group helped me through, with out telling me I started a bit big.

I emptied the machine and filled it with a lot less stuff, about 3/4 paper and then a bit of fabric scraps. I picked one color for all the scraps, Red- Pink. This time the machine munched happily away at the scraps and created a beautiful pink pulp in about 3 hours.



I am truly in love, no more clogging or stalling. Apparently overfilling the "Critter" is a bit like over filling the washing machine, nothing really gets done and you end up starting all over again. I set up a station to pull the paper and started making my second batch of hand made paper. I did a second tub of mostly white office paper, bye bye packing slips and used envelopes. Look how pretty you are when I recycle you.

You might ask, "What does she intend to do with all this recycled paper?" I think some of you will start to see upcycled thank you notes in your orders and I may start making some blank cards. Right now, I am working on making nice paper, getting a semi studio set up outside Making paper is a messy bit of work. Stay tuned for updates!

Polly Goes Postal

What do you do with all those Christmas cards after Christmas is over and the tree is thrown out and all the decorations are put to rest for another year? You could save them forever and someday let your children throw out millions of cards from people they never met or don't remember. You could toss them in the trash but that's not very exciting and adds to the landfills. Hey, I know, you could run them through your trusty die cutter and make envelopes fit for Polly Pocket!

Now your next question, and justifiably so, is what in world would Polly do with all those envelopes? Well, turns out Polly's post office won't take them. Something about the wrong envelope and excess charges for something or other based on color, texture, and size. OK, so how about using them for gift labels next year?! That would just be too cute, especially if you remembered who sent you which card and gave it back to them in an altered form. They would also be useful for scrapbooking apparently, although I have no first hand experience with scrapbooking and have no clue what you would do with them in that arena. They would make a great money holder if you wanted to put a $100 bill in one! After all, the greatest things come in small packages, like my premature daughter.

So here's to a new year of up-cycling! Maybe Polly's post office will eventually accept these and do their bit for the environment.

UpCycling - Better than Recycling

At one of my Yahoo groups there has been a great discussion about UpCycling or using trash to make something even better. There are a lot of great artists who incorporate this idea into their art, Pablo Picasso pops into my head as one.

This past weekend we were gathering up our recycling to make a trip to the center and my DH mentioned he (me) would need to get his office gifts into order, in the past he has given tins full of candy. Earlier this year, like 2 months ago, I offered to use my SUPER COOL newest toy, a Grand Mark AccuCut, to make the boxes for him. As we were breaking down stuff to put in the truck he said, "Can't we use some of this cardboard you get fabric in for the boxes." I responded that the AccuCut would crush it, but I had an idea that the cereal boxes and the cola boxes would work. AND they did!! so here is some UpCycling for the holiday.

Merry Christmas world. Hopefully folks will keep these around after the holiday as a novelty piece but since DH works at a very environmentally conscious place I know if they end up trash again they will be recycled.