Welcome to my first multiple photo effort... I uploaded six (6) photos from my first effort to make paper pulp out of newspapers. The only way I can see them is at the end of the post... so this is a brief description of what I wanted to share.
Photo - 1 - is the box of shredded newspapers I created for my paper mache projects so I grabbed it for this first effort. I guess I need to say that is what is left in my box of shreds. I barely used any of it for this soaking... and I was amazed at how much pulp it made!
In photo - 2 - You can see the blended mush, called pulp, in the pan I have dedicated for craft use. You can also see how the black from the paper gets on everything... at least everything plastic! In the pan is the plastic art knife I grabbed to use as a mixing spoon. In photo - 3 - you can see what it did to the end of my blender. I'm not sure yet if I have to dedicate this blender to paper pulping or if I can still use it for other crafts, like mixing plaster.
I was so surprised to see how much it made that I didn't know what to create with it. I finally decided to make and dry molded squares in my silicone mold for crafts only, planning to store it dry and use smaller amounts when I get to the making paper sheets part of this craft. You can see the molds in photo - 4 - and a couple of squares that came out of their places the way I hoped they would.
There was so much water still in the pulp after I strained as much as I could out of it, in sections. Then I turned it over on more newspapers to drain water from the molded shapes. I had some left over so I did the same thing with sections on a small metal pan I had, turning it over to drain more also. You can see in photo - 5 - that I decided to squeeze the sections of pulp with my hands and MORE water was discovered! So, I decided to squeeze out one of the square molds, too. You can see that half of the empty mold was filled with water from one cube in photo - 6 - ... up in the corner.
In the videos I watched on YouTube, they used white paper scraps... I can see why!! :-) I hope to find some use for recycling newspapers, so I may try to mix the different kinds of paper in the future. For now, I have to squeeze out as much of the water as I can to make the right shapes I need... some to dry and store, some to dry and try as crafting supplies.
I also learned a bit about how much water really comes out of this pulping process. A lot more than any video shows! haha... I wonder why! I am now going to collect a lot of sponges and old rags and paper shaping materials for the future.
I have wanted to try this for so long, at least now I am learning the way it works and finding a path to the way I want to make it.
Maybe some day I will figure out why I can't post photos from the writing screen, like I use to do. That will be a major improvement.
Until next time,
Deborah Martin
work2gather.us
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