I wanted to see if i could make paper/board with egg cartons even though all my papermaking supplies are packed away. Could I just rip them up, soak them and flatten it all out on a towel? And if that works where can I go from there……..
Interesting journey with egg carton experiment almost complete . I ripped about three or so cartons up in big chunks, threw them in a bowl and added water. I let it soak over night,, added some glitter and red tissue paper tidbits, scooped it out with my hands (letting water drip out) and then layed it out on bath towels to dry.
Now that I’ve learned a bunch, I will try it again. My photo taking leaves much to be desired but perfecting it is at the bottom of my gotta do list.
Some of the things i will do differently:
- Break the cartons into much tinier pieces.
- Be more careful when flipping it over. Screening would have helped, but just used towels trying to really simplify.
- Make board a little thinner or not in the wettest week of the year so far. It took over a week to dry it out.
- I painted a thin layer of glue/water over it when dry to help hold my boo boos together. I think i will just add some glue to original pulp mixture.
I wasn’t totally thrilled with the gray color but since I embedded glitter and colored tissue in it I didn’t want paint that would cover them up so I painted it lightly with walnut ink and wiped some off. I really like the look of it now.
Anxious to find out how the turmeric worked that a fellow Red Thread Creative added to her mix. It was a beautiful yellow color of course.
I added some watercolor paper and cut up some larger pieces of brown packing paper i had already used for other drawings.
I haven’t quite decided how I wanted to deal with the edges or inside covers yet and I still have to crush the pages and add ribbons, etc., etc. But it is definitely growing on me. The most important thing is I am having fun in the moment and letting some of the mind chatter go away.
Seasoned 