This, of course, is not how the Ancient Chinese made paper. They used things such as old rags, mulberry bark, used hemp fishing line, and eventually, bamboo. We started with scraps of paper. We have lots of scraps of paper in this house.
1. Make a screen. Ours was a piece of old window screen, stapled to a styrofoam tray.
2. Put 1-2 cups of hot water in the blender. Add a large handful of small paper scraps.
3. Blend! Add more scraps if you think it looks too thin. Definitely a trial and error recipe.
4. Pour the mixture onto your screen. The screen must be over a container or in the sink. Lots of water runs out!
5. Press down on the mix with a spoon to remove more of the water. Fill in any holes. See all the paper scraps?
6. Flip the screen onto several folded paper towels.
7. Roll the paper to flatten it and remove more of the water.
8. Carefully transfer the paper to something for drying. We used parchement paper on a cookie sheet at first. After we filled that tray, we went to directly putting the paper onto the tray.
9. Wait. And wait some more. Even in the Arizona sun at 95 degrees, this still took over an hour for the thinnest pieces. I didn't get a picture of this step in the process, but I did come up with a new Chinese proverb: Watched paper never dries.
10. Marvel at your paper! The very white piece in the upper left is the first one we made. The others were made with a more colored scraps. The one in the lower right is supposed to be an ice cream cone...
We haven't attempted to paint Chinese characters onto the paper yet. If we get to that, I'll be sure to post a picture in our History Project Pictures!
12 comments:
This looks like a fun project. I am sure your kids loved it. Can you use the blender again for food after doing paper in it? Does it dull the blades? We may have to give this a try one day.
Oh how cool! And that was easy? It still looks messy and complicated to me, lol. People talk about the chicken mummy being scary, but to me that's just cooking. Making paper is a true art - and I am not an artist!
We've got to try everything once though. That's my motto. ;)
Ahh... good to hear... we never attempted paper making.... for the very reasons you gave! *Ü*
hope you are having a grand Staurday my friend!
Wow - that is cool. I think I might try that with the co-op history class when we get to Ancient China. The kids can do all of the waiting with thier parents and the messy fun stuff with me. It didn't hurt your blender did it?
Wow... looks pretty simple.. maybe we will try that out too!
God bless,
Sallie
I have always wanted to make paper. Hmmmm.....I need to plan on this sometime later in the year.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
What a fun project! I'm curious, too... how is your blender after this project?
Wow, your experiment turned out oh so much better than ours did. Of course, our recipe actually called for using a cotton shirt, cut into small pieces and then put in the blender. Yep, killed my blender. (sob, sob) I haven't replaced it yet and I'm realizing that was 4 years ago! Guess I didn't really need that blender after all, eh?
OH! My boys would love to do this. Of course they love anything to do with the blender. We might just have to try this one.
I am amazed at how many projects you all get done! They all look so good.
We did the paper making project years ago, but never got around to writing anything on it. :)
HOW COOL IS THAT!!!
Now we did entertain the idea of trying to make our own parchment (from medieval times) but decided against it. Some of the very cool projects need to be left for when they are older (mine are only 7 and 3).
I'm sorry I've gotten behind in reading your blog Lee, I intend to stop by and visit by my pee-brain sends me in another direction. I'm catching up now though and filling your email with plenty of messages, I'm sure.
: ) Jessica
cooooooooool
\\\nice
Post a Comment