Now, those of you who read this site regularly have probably gathered by now that I am not the Princess of Patience. I don’t like messing with techniques that take forever to get to the final payoff. You’ll notice that the two papers shown at right are very textural, with lots of flecks and bumps. My way of making handmade papers is relatively fast, but to get that speed, I do end up with papers that are kind of bumpy and chunky. Finer papers require more soaking and blending, which I generally cannot find the time to do. If you want that kind of handmade paper, you’ll probably want to keep searching online for a tutorial that covers soaking and making finer pulp.

OK, enough disclaimers—here’s what you need to make your paper:

• Shredded papers

• A blender
• A frame
• Plastic screening
• Industrial stapler and staples
• Duct tape
• A plastic container that’s bigger than your frame
• Sponges
• Shop towels
• A source of water
• A place to let your papers dry

Don’t worry, I’ll explain each one of the items in this list as we go along.

Here’s my basic papermaking kit, dragged out of my work room into the kitchen. It’s a big Rubbermaid bin that holds bags of shredded paper, my shop towels, sponges, blender and frames. Everything gets dumped out while I’m working, rinsed off outside when I’m finished, dried in the garage, and then repacked and stored in my work room again. This is the only photo containing neatness you’ll be seeing today, because this is a disgustingly messy process.

Find yourself a convenient place to work, that’s close to water, electricity, and that can be completely trashed. For me, it’s one end of my kitchen counter—next to the sink, but also right next to the kitchen door leading to the garage and outside, where there’s a hose.

This is my basic full-sheet frame. It’s just four pieces of wood that have been nailed together, and it measures roughly 9×12 inches. This is the largest piece of paper I ever make—going larger means getting a larger vat, and making more pulp, and having the upper body strength to pull the frame up filled with wet paper pulp. However, I do know people who do sheets of 24×36 paper, using old bathtubs in their backyard. I think they’re nuts.

If you want to make your own frame, go buy some 1″ square molding at the hardware store, cut four pieces, and nail them together.

Over my frame, I’ve stapled a sheet of plastic window screening. It’s relatively taut, although with use, it does begin to sag a bit. When it gets too saggy, I pry out the staples and replace it, or learn to work around it.

Here’s my frame after it’s been taped. I’ve run a piece of duct tape along each edge of the frame, covering the screen and staples. This gives the paper a nice feathered edge. Once the pulp runs off the screen, it doesn’t stick to your paper sheet as well, and you end up with that nice deckled edge all around. Don’t skip this part—untaped edges make for a wicked time removing the paper from the mold. You also end up with pulp where you don’t want it—very messy.

Here are my lovely bags of shredded paper, bagged by color. I shred all my junk mail for this, plus anything else that’s laying around—envelopes, brown paper wrappings, whatever. If it’s paper, and you can cram it into the shredder, use it. I have a cheap office shredder from Wal-Mart, but if you don’t have one, ripping your papers up into tiny pieces will work.

For this lesson, I used two different bags of paper shreds:

The sort of lavender paper with red flecks was created with shredded Netflix envelopes. There’s a section of the envelope you have to remove to get your DVD out—I save that section from all my rentals, and shred them. The paper is bright red on one side, and black and white on the other, which is why my paper ends up being lavender with red flecks.

The gold paper is a mix of brown kraft paper, gold mailing envelopes, and some unprinted newsprint. I shredded all of this together into one batch.

I had about half a gallon bag of Netflix red, and a full bag of the gold. I ended up with three sheets of lavender paper, and six of gold. Your mileage may vary.

Here’s my lovely Wal-Mart blender, loaded and ready to start creating pulp. I have a cheap blender dedicated to papermaking, since this process can be hard on motors. I also get kind of grossed out by the idea of making dinner with something that’s had printing ink in it, but that’s just me.

In my blender is 4 cups of water, and two handfuls of paper shreds, which makes a full, but not packed blender. I pulse the blender a bit to get things going, and when it sounds like my motor isn’t too strained, I switch it on liquefy, and let it run about 20 seconds. More blending will get you finer pulp, and less will get you stuff that looks like barfed up confetti—either way, you’ll end up with paper pulp.

Each blender full of pulp is dumped into my vat—the empty Rubbermaid container. This size vat is ideal for my full sheets of paper. For something smaller, I use a plastic wash basin. Try to match your vat size to your paper mold—you want it to be slightly larger, but not so big that you’re making pulp forever to get going.

My half bag of shreds yielded four blenders of pulp. I stuck my hand into the vat, and decided it was a bit thick, so I added another four cups of water. This is a personal preference kinda thing—I like a little more water in my vat, so I can slosh the pulp around, and get the thickness I choose. My ideal vat feels like cheap applesauce, or really runny oatmeal.

OK, now for the fun part! Slide your taped mold into the vat at an angle, and then flatten it out, under the gooey liquid. Your taped side is up—this will give you a flat sheet of paper.

Now, this next part is another personal preference sort of thing, so bear with me. I rock my mold back and forth a little bit as I’m raising it. Some people just pull straight up, and take what they get. I find that rocking it forward and back gives me a more even coverage of pulp. Your goal is to end up with the surface of your mold covered with an even layer of pulp. You don’t want any bare spots, or any that are too thin. Try a few sheets, and you’ll learn how thick or thin you want your pulp to be.

Here’s my pulp covered mold, fresh out of the water. The pulp is really wet right now, so keep the mold flat—if you tilt it, the pulp will run right off. That’s not a bad thing, because if you decide your pulp is uneven, or too thick or thin, you can just tilt your mold sideways, and the whole layer of pulp will plop right back into the vat.

Now comes the drying. To turn pulp into paper, it has to dry. We want it to dry somewhere other than on our mold, so we’ll have to force the first part of the drying. While the mold is still hanging out over the vat, grab a sponge, and run it along the underside of the mold, against the screen. Be VERY GENTLE about this—you don’t want to press so hard that you lift the taped screen right off the frame. Squeeze your sponge out, and keep drying.

You’ll notice as you’re drying your first mold that at a certain point, the pulp stops looking all wet and fluffy, and starts looking like it’s sticking to the screen. That’s good—your mess of pulp is turning into a sheet of paper. When your sponges stop filling with water quickly, and the mold isn’t all drippy and wet, set it down and grab a roll of shop towels.

About shop towels: they are NOT paper towels. These are much heavier towels, sold on the roll in either the paint section of Home Depot, or the automotive section at Wal-Mart. The auto ones are blue, and the paint ones are white, which is why I prefer them. If you can’t find shop towels, you can also dry papers on either Handi-Wipes, which can get really expensive, or pieces of old t-shirts. Do not attempt to dry your papers on paper towels! They’re either disintigrate, or fuse to your paper—very bad, either way.

Because my mold is big, I roll out two shop towels and lay them, still connected, on my countertop. Then I flip my mold over on top of them. Your paper should be dry enough at this point that it won’t slide right off the mold as you tilt it. If it looks like it’s sliding, stop, level the mold out, and dry it on the under side a little more.

Now that your mold is sitting on top of your paper, it’s time to really do some drying. I usually have lots of sponges going when I make paper, so I can really suck the water out. Wring the sponges out regularly, and this time, you can press as hard as you like, as long as the mold is sitting on the countertop.

Watch the back side of your screen—when the paper sheet is ready to come off, it will start to look like there are dry spots on it. It’s OK to occasionally lift the edge of your mold and see if the paper is coming off yet—if it’s not, just drop the mold and keep drying from the back side.

The moment of truth: the paper is now ready to be removed from the mold. It just takes a little corner to start this process, so lift the mold at each corner, and see if it will start peeling off on its own. If not, sometimes more drying, or a little persuasion with your finger will start it. Once the peeling starts, I generally let gravity pull the paper off by lifting the mold very slowly, and holding down the edge of the shop towel. This also takes some practice—you have to be patient with your paper, because it’s still wet, and can be torn very easily at this point.

Here’s a beautiful, fresh sheet of wet paper, ready to be hung out to dry.

I’ll tell you something: this was the second sheet I did. The first sheet didn’t start peeling off the mold, so I rushed it, and ended up ruining it. I almost always ruin my first sheet—I forget that I have to be patient, and rush pulling the sheet off. That’s OK, because the pulp is still wet—I just collect all the pieces and parts that have torn off the mold, and toss them back into the vat. They instantly turn back into runny applesauce, and get reused. Don’t freak out of you don’t end up with a beautiful, square sheet of paper—if you don’t love the sheet you’ve pulled, take the wet paper off the shop towel and toss it back into your vat.

This is my drying station, out in the garage. I just clip the shop towels to a skirt hanger, and let them hang over night. Some people like to press their papers dry with an iron, but that sounds like work to me, so I let them dry naturally. If they curl, they can be pressed flat with an iron later.

Once I have my first sheet out on the drying rack, I go back and repeat dipping my mold, drying and peeling until all my pulp is used up. When your vat is more water than pulp, it’s time to either change colors, or blend more pulp. I usually go ahead and dump whatever is left outside in my garden—DO NOT pour extra pulp down your drain, or you’ll need a plumber tomorrow! Some people pour whatever is left in their vat through a mold, and then dump the leftover wet pulp into a plastic bag. These can be frozen and used later—again, that sounds like work, so I just toss it on the garden and move on.

After rinsing my vat, molds and blender with the garden hose, I can start over again.

Here’s the first pull from my second color of pulp, which seriously looked like someone had barfed up pumpkin pie. The papers dried to a nice, mellow golden color. Your papers will almost always dry lighter than they look wet, and the color will be softer. It’s really hard to get vivid, intense colors using this technique. Maybe if I shredded some Astrobrite, I could get a bright color. Hmm, I’ll have to try that…

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/papermaking/papermaking/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/papermaking/silk-paper/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/papermaking/silk-paper/#comments Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:03:43 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=194 About five years ago, I took a two hour class on silk paper making from UK artist Kath Russon. In two hours, I made half a dozen totally cool sheets of paper and a silk paper bowl—and then promptly forgot about this skill, because the supplies for it were far too expensive.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a challenge packet in the mail from Leandra at Paper Artsy, also based in the UK. In it was a handful of lovely purple fibers—-fibers that I hadn’t played with for five years. I knew immediately that I had to scrape together the supplies to give silk papermaking another try.

One of the reasons I dragged my feet about doing this for so long was the cost of getting silk or any other type of fun fibers here in the US. However, with the increased interest in knitting and spinning has come a wealth of suppliers who stock all sorts of fibers, including silks, cottons, flax and hemp. These fibers will all work with this technique, giving slightly different qualities and textures to the paper. This is one of those techniques that calls for experiementation. Fortunately, Kath wrote a really excellent book, Handmade Silk Paper, that gives a generous description of all types of fibers, how to dye them, how to work with them, and what qualities they’ll give to the finished paper. If the general overview of the technique I’m posting here interests you, buy the book—there are all kinds of cool tricks and techniques in it that will help you make beautiful papers, and dozens of brilliant examples of finished papers that will inspire you.

To make your papers, you’ll need:

Fibers – For these papers, I used silk roving and flax tops, plus some assorted dyed fibers laying around my workroom. Fabulous fibers can be found for reasonable prices at Mielke’s Fiber Arts.

Plastic screening – I used replacement screening, purchased by the roll from the hardware store. Be sure you get plastic, and not wire.

Wallpaper paste – Kath’s technique uses methyl cellulose paste. I had a hard time finding it here in the US. I did find Golden Harvest Teknabond, which is a starch based paste, and feels pretty close to the same thing. Do not try this technique with wheat paste—it’s not the same thing. I mixed 2 tablespoons of paste to 2 cups of water, and it came out the right texture.

You’ll also need plastic sheeting, newspapers, measuring cup and spoons, a jar to hold your paste, some hangers with clips for drying, and whatever inclusions you’d like to throw into your paper—things like floss, dried flowers or leaves. grass, glitter. Whatever you think your paper needs.

Here’s the setup for papermaking on my workroom floor: A couple of layers of newspaper, covered by plastic to protect the floor—this is a really messy, gluey technique, so be sure to use the plastic. Over the plastic is a layer of plastic screening. I cut mine in a couple of sizes: some that’s slightly larger than letter sized paper, and some that are about the size of a quarter sheet or a little larger. The larger pieces are for full sheets of paper, and the smaller ones are for little accent pieces. I like the raggedy edges of these papers, so I tend to make them to size rather than making them large and cutting them down.

Be sure to cut your screen pieces in pairs—you need two pieces roughly the same size to make these papers.

This lovely wad of fluff is silk roving. Roving is fiber that is ready to spin. Silk roving has really long fibers, so it’s great for big sheets of paper. Cotton has really short fibers, so cotton roving is good for smaller pieces of paper, or for combining with a longer fiber. We’ll talk more about layering fibers in a minute…

How does this ball of fluff turn into long, flat paper? Well, there’s some pulling involved, to flatten out the fibers. Then, there’s some spreading, to get a nice, even layer of fibers with no clumps.

After some pulling and spreading, you end up with something that looks sort of like this. I try to keep my layers of fibers somewhat directional—so, these fibers are running across my screen, to create a base. The fibers are pretty fluffy—don’t worry too much about this, because they’ll get flattened out shortly. The goal is to build nice, even layers with few holes—something I need to practice a little more.

Here, I’m building up another layer with flax tops, which are a light tan when undyed. This layer is running up and down my screen. Again, the goal is usually to get a nice, even layer of fibers with no holes—well, unless you’re looking to make striped paper, which is what I’m going to end up with here.

Now for the fun part! On top of my piles of fibers, I place a second piece of plastic screening. Make sure it covers all your fibers—if not, tuck them in a bit. I’ve mixed up my paste according to the instructions (which require it to stand for about 10 minutes—don’t skip that part!). The paste is kind of thick and a little gummy, but you can see it’s somewhat clear—it will dry almost completely clear.

Pour some paste onto your hand, and…

…moosh it onto the screen. You’re pushing down with the paste, because it has to get all the way through the fibers. Cover the top completely—you can sort of see your fibers flatten out and get shiny as they accept the paste. When all the fibers look nice and wet, flip the whole screen and fiber sandwich over, and repeat the paste mooshing from the other side. It doesn’t have to be soaking wet, but all the fibers do have to be gluey.

When the fibers are all wet with glue, peel off one layer of screen, leaving the fibers on one layer. This is important: the layer of screen remaining will leave a slight grid pattern on the finished paper. If you like this, and want it to be the front side of your paper, make sure that it’s against the remaining screen. If you don’t like it, make sure the finished face of your paper is not against the screen.

Here, I’ve peeled back one layer of screen to add some inclusions to a piece of purple silk paper. I scatter some dried hydrangea flowers, then replace the screen and apply more paste to stick them down. Since I don’t want a grid on my finished paper, I peel the layer of screen that’s right against my flowers off for drying. If I wanted a grid on my flowers, I would flip the screen sandwich, and peel off the back piece of screen.

These papers are hanging out in the garage to dry. I’ve clipped skirt hangers to the screen, not to the fibers—otherwise, there will be hanger marks on my finished paper. The paper takes anywhere from a few hours to overnight to dry, depending on how much paste is used, and how dense the fibers are. There might be just a tiny bit of paste dripping at first, so be sure to protect the floor.

Once the paper is completely dry, simply peel the remaining piece of screen away from it. If the paper buckles a little, press it flat with a warm iron.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/papermaking/silk-paper/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/paste-papers/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/paste-papers/#comments Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:35:09 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=98 I’ve always loved the look of homemade paste papers. However, I’m not the Princess of Patience, so the endless recipes that require boiling of starch or paste and waiting for them to thicken or set up have always put me off. Being an adventurous girl, I decided to find a faster way to get to the fun part—the actual making of the papers—while still preserving the look I love. Here’s the method I used to make all the papers shown at right (in about half an hour, excluding drying time):

You’ll need these materials:

• Freezer paper, plastic wrap, or plastic grocery bags to work on

• Masking tape
• Concentrated liquid starch: I used Sta-Flo, available at Wal-Mart. It contains no dyes, so it’s clear.
• Cheap acrylic paints: I use mostly the low end paints: Anita’s, Americana Acrylics, Folk Art. There’s no point wasting money on the more expensive paints, since they contain more pigment, and the goal here is to get a semi-transparent look.
• Cheap bristle brushes: I buy these at the hardware store. They take a ton of abuse, clean up easily, and if one gets so nasty that it’s time to toss it, I’m only out 50 cents. Don’t ruin your good brushes—get cheap ones for the dirty work. I used one brush for each color.
• Small containers: I used the small plastic containers that single servings of applesauce come in. In a pinch, paper or styro cups cut down will work, too. Mostly, you want something that won’t tip over, and that will hold your brush when not in use. I used one container for each color.
• Paper: I used two papers for the examples shown at right. One was a 28 lb. Hammermill Color Copy paper—it’s just a little heavier than your average printer paper, and not very absorbant. The other was a 110 lb. Exact Index stock—basically, cover stock. I’ve seen paste papers done on lightweight text paper, cardstock, construction paper, and watercolor paper. Pick a paper that you like, and try it—if it falls apart, don’t use it. I worked on 8-1/2 x 11 paper, but any size that is comfortable for you is fine. Some people like to work on big 24 x 36 sheets, and make lots of paper at once. You choose.
• Combs: For my papers, I used two combs. One was a cheap plastic one from the dollar store. The other was a professional faux finish comb with several different texture edges. You can drag anything through paste to make a pattern: paper clips, your fingernails, old credit cards that have been cut up. If my dog was a few pounds lighter, I’d probably drag him across the paper. I also used a sea sponge to dab color here and there. Paper towels will work for this, and so will wadded up plastic wrap.
• Paper towels (especially if you’re a messy worker)
• Newspapers, and a place to spread them out

Place freezer paper or plastic wrap on your work table, and tape it down so it won’t shift around. I worked on two 8-1/2 x 11 inch papers at a time, so my piece of freezer paper wasn’t too big. If you’re working on large paper, try using a piece of plastic dropcloth from the hardware store, or a big plastic trash bag. You want plastic rather than newspaper, because you’ll be dragging some of your paint out onto your work surface—and also, because no matter how dry your paper gets on plastic, you’ll still be able to peel it off.

To mix up a batch of blue, I squeezed a bit of blue acrylic paint into one of my applesauce containers. This blob is roughly the size of a quarter.

Next, I added a bit of starch—a little less than a quarter cup. This wasn’t something I measured out—I just sort of poured a little bit in. You’ll find that once you start making these papers, you’ll come up with your own idea of the perfect amount of pigment and starch.

I mixed my paint and starch together using a cheap bristle brush. One brush for each color, to keep the colors from getting muddy. Notice that I store my brushes laying across the container, rather than stuck in it—that’s to keep me from sticking the brush I have in my hand in the wrong color, and also to keep my brushes from getting overloaded with paste.

Apply some mixed up paste color to a piece of paper. Don’t be shy—this isn’t a drybrush kind of technique—but don’t get your paper sopping wet, either. A nice, liberal coat of color is what you want. Don’t worry about streaks and blobs (or in my case, bubbles from shaking the starch before I poured it). Think of those things as texture, and encourage them if they seem to look interesting. Notice that I’m painting right off the edges of my paper—that’s a good thing, because I’ll end up with color from edge to edge when I’m finished.

I worked back and forth between two pieces of paper. After applying color to my other sheet, I came back to this one, and painted on a second, darker blue. The first coat wasn’t dry yet, so it went on as a streaky coat—that’s OK, because the streaks are going to work for me. Again, I painted right off the edges of my paper, to get a full sheet of color.

Now for some texture. On this piece, I used my faux finish comb, which gave big, bold stripes. Starting just above the edge of my paper, I placed the comb into the color, pressed lightly, and dragged in a straight-ish line down the full length of my sheet and off the edge, giving stripes from top to bottom of the paper. I repeated this until the full width of the paper was striped. Then I went back again, and dragged a second time. What you’re doing with this step is sort of displacing some of the paste, revealing what’s underneath. On my paper, that was a very pale blue, since my first blue coat had dried just a little.

In the samples below, you can see some wide stripes, and some narrow ones. The narrower lines were done with a cheap plastic men’s comb from the dollar store. You’ll notice that some of my papers have straight lines—I did those as I described above. Some have curvy lines—I simply dragged my comb in a wavy line across my paper, and repeated the curve all the way across. Sometimes, I dragged both down the paper, and then across it, creating sort of a plaid effect. Sometimes, I did the plaid effect using curved lines. This is the fun part, so experiment a little—anything you do to create a pattern on your paper is fair game. If your papers curl, pull the dry sheets over the edge of a table to straighten them, or stack them under some heavy books overnight.

Once you have a paper finished, you’ll want to move it off your workspace and let it dry. Gently lift one corner and peel it off your plastic, then lift the corner diagonally opposite, and lift it. Place your wet paper onto a stack of newspaper and let it dry. Mine took about an hour to set up.

Everything cleans up with soap and water, but do this before the paste sets up for the least amount of scrubbing.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/paste-papers/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/tissue-chalks/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/tissue-chalks/#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:32:57 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=97 Materials:

Ivory, white, tan and gold acrylic paints

Wide paint brush (mine was an inexpensive bristle brush from Home Depot)

White gift tissue, 2 sheets

Chunky stamp (mine was grapes and leaves from Back Street)

Paper plate

Green and purple chalk pastels
Scrap paper

Water

Sea sponge

Clear matte spray sealer

Plastic sheeting

How to do it:

Lay plastic sheeting on your work surface (mine was my workroom floor). Be sure you put down a piece that’s larger than your tissue. Paint a square of ivory acrylic that’s slightly larger than your tissue onto the plastic. If you have some extra tissue, you can lay a sheet of it under your plastic to show you the correct size. (Note: See the red acrylic around the edges? That’s on the back side of my plastic. Sometimes, old colors will peel off on new papers, so it’s best to start with a clean piece of plastic. Don’t ask me how I discovered this—it was ugly.)

Immediately cover your painted square with a piece of tissue. Let it float down onto the paint, and then gently pat it with your hand. Don’t worry if there are little wrinkles or creases—we’re going to call that texture and say it was intentional. The paint might come through a bit and get onto your hands. If you don’t like that idea, you might want to wear gloves—I just wash my hands after this step. Dry bush a layer of paint over your damp tissue. Use a light touch, brushing or patting, until the paper is covered with paint. Immediately cover with another piece of tissue. Pat it in place with your hand just like you did with the first piece.

Squirt a little of each color of acrylic paint onto a paper plate, leaving some space between them. Add a little water onto the plate—don’t worry if the colors start to bleed into each other.

Wet the sea sponge with a little water until it’s nice and soft. Wring out any excess water—you don’t want to work too wet at this point. Dab the sponge onto the plate, picking up some paint. Kind of smoosh it around a bit so you pick up different colors of paint in different places. Pat gently onto the top layer of tissue, moving about randomly and squishing the sponge around to use all those colors you picked up.

Keep patting the paper with paint, refilling your sponge whenever necessary. Once you’ve covered your paper, step back and look at it—if it seems to be more interesting in some places than others, just dab a bit more paint to add texture. Allow paint to dry completely before moving on to the next step.

Squirt some gold acrylic onto a paper plate. Spread it around with a paintbrush. Dab your stamp into the paint and then press onto the paper. Don’t worry if the impression isn’t perfect every time—this is a very soft, impressionistic sort of look. Stamp randomly, filling the paper with pattern. Allow to dry completely before proceeding. Once the paper is completely dry, gently peel it from the plastic backing.

Rub green chalk over the leaf section of the pattern. Go right over the acrylic paint—the chalk won’t stick to it for long. Once you start to see color on the leaves, rub against the paper with your finger, spreading the chalk wherever you want to see green. Be gentle.

Rub the purple chalk really hard onto a piece of scrap paper—you’ll see a little pile of purple dust build up. Dip your finger into the dust and rub it onto the grapes. Once you get used to these two techinques, you can make your chalking as bold or subtle as you wish. Once you’re finished chalking, give a quick spray of matte sealer to keep the chalks from rubbing away.

How to do it:

Lay plastic sheeting on your work surface (mine was my workroom floor). Be sure you put down a piece that’s larger than your tissue. Paint a square onto the plastic that’s slightly larger than your tissue. If you have some extra tissue, you can lay a sheet of it under your plastic to show you the correct size.

Immediately cover your painted square with a piece of tissue. Let it float down onto the paint, and then gently pat it with your hand. The paint might come through a bit and get onto your hands. If you don’t like that idea, you might want to wear gloves—I just wash my hands after this step.

Dry bush a layer of paint over your damp tissue. Use a light touch, brushing or patting, until the paper is covered. Don’t worry about getting every bit of white covered—that happens later.

Add another layer of tissue onto your wet paint, patting it down like you did the last time. Brush another coat of paint on, using gentle strokes and pats, covering the white of the tissue completely. I just squirt blobs of paint here and there onto the tissue, and then spread it out—it doesn’t take much paint to cover the tissue.

Let the paint dry completely before moving on. Seriously—walk away for a few hours and do something else. When the paint is dry, gently peel it from the plastic. It’s a little fragile, but much stronger than it was before painting. It shouldn’t take too much persuasion to get it loose.

Now for the fun part—decorating! Squirt a little gold paint onto a paper plate, pat your chunky stamp around in it to spread it out, and then start stamping onto your painted tissue. I used just one stamp for this piece, rotating it randomly.

Stamp your paper completely—or not. Change stamps if you want to, or change colors. Sprinkle glitter onto the wet paint. Smoosh your kids hands on it. It’s your paper.