So, with all the rain here, and now with the truck being broken which means until the road mud dries up some I can’t go out anywhere, I’m doing some of the other things on my creative bucket list.  I need a break from writing/editing/formatting from time to time, and *shakes head* housework is not on that list.

Yes, I do the domestic stuff when I need to, or more likely, when I absolutely must. Besides, I’ve done enough of that while confined in this house due to the relentless rainy weather. And I seem to make messes as fast as I clean it.  Today the mess is compounded by my project. As it turns out, making paper is quite messy.

Handmade Paper

Handmade paper is high on the list of things I *want* to do. After today’s trial, it appears I’ll need to do it a lot more often to become proficient.

Those little wasps make papermaking look so easy.

The other day I collected some mulberry leaves, chopped them up and put them in a large pot to cook.

Day one and the leaves were still completely unchanged by the heating and stirring.

Day two and ditto.

Day three and I gave up and threw it into the blender.

That might have been a mistake, but I’m not sure yet because I haven’t tried the pounding it into a pulp method yet.

The first mistake I KNOW was a mistake is the improper use of my improvised deckle.

The next mistake was not having a good place to turn out the wet sheet so it could press until it dried. I turned it out onto a folded sheet and covered with the other half of the sheet. That wasn’t easy to manipulate when I tried to peel it off.

So my first sheet of handmade paper was, in most ways of looking at it, a complete failure. I even wasted two of my ginseng leaves that I wanted to press into the surface of it.

But from a learning perspective, it was a useful experiment. Now I know to do some things differently next time. Hopefully the NEXT photo you see of my handiwork, it looks a lot better than the one below!