Here's the second batch of paper
I made at home! This time, I used paper from a ream of 100% cotton
resumé paper that we had laying around. I ran it through the shredder
after cleaning out the remnants of the newsprint from the last batch. It
had a really nice light cream color to it.
After shredding everything, there was an extra step. Since cotton fibers
are much stronger than cheapo newsprint, I had to boil the paper shreds
to help break them down. Then I blended them into pulp just like I did
with the other batch.
The pulp was a much cleaner and nicer color this time, since the paper
had no ink on it when I shredded it. I brought everything outside, where
I had my plastic tub and felts/board set up.
I got about 20 sheets out of this batch. I did the same thing I did last
week, where I dried some on the board and some on my felt. This resulted
in two very different textures on the final sheets.
I am pretty happy with how they turned out! I think the secret to
smoother sheets really is in the fabric I use to dry them, so I'm going
to look into getting some pellon or other fabric that's more suited to
couching.
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