Papermaking

Day 228: Sometimes all it takes is a gentle nudge to inspire me to drag out some craft I haven't done in years. A friend mentioned that she had seen a post from someone who was making "seed paper," so I went closet-mining and found my papermaking kit where it had migrated to the bottom of a stack of boxes of more frequently used items, almost causing me to lose interest in the project because it was so deeply buried. In fact, I closed the cupboard door on it once, but the idea persisted in nagging. "Do I really want to do this?" I asked myself, and shortly thereafter had all the equipment including a very large vat of water set up in my kitchen. I ran a bagful of paper through the shredder to make it easier to pulp and in a mere hour or so, I had several sheets and four rounds of pretty green paper drying under weight. I prefer to press the wet sheets rather than ironing them. Allowing them to dry naturally prevents the buckling known as "cockle and curl." Making the rounds was the first step in preparing for the final process of making seed paper. Why I want it to be circular is anyone's guess (perhaps to fit in flower pots), but I do not believe anyone produces a circular deckle commercially, so I made my own (two sizes) out of cheap wooden embroidery hoops and a bit of fiberglass window screen. This morning, I engaged in the second phase of the experiment: adding seeds to the paper. I used some celery seed from my spice shelf to test two methods: adding seed to the surface of a wet sheet, and mixing it directly in with the pulp before pouring. Both ways worked, but I believe I got better distribution by sprinkling the seeds on the wet paper. I will be saving seed from my garden as plants mature this summer to produce seed paper later in the year.