I've been saving scraps of cedar bark from basket projects with the idea of making paper. I finally had a project that I want to use the paper on, so I started the process last week. The cedar needs to be stripped thinly, cut into 2" lengths and soaked. Next it needs to be cooked with an alkali to break down the fibers so it can be made into pulp. That is where I ran into problems - the alkali could be lye, or soda ash. Lye is no longer sold in hardware stores, and soda ash is available as Arm & Hammer's Super Washing Soda, which of course none of the stores carries any more. The last option is a swimming pool chemical, pH-UP. As there aren't a huge amount of swimming pools around here, it took a while to track some down, but I finally found it at Home Depot!
So, after cooking the bark, then rinsing and rinsing and rinsing, I put it through the blender, a handful at a time, to create this pulp. I used about half, and have frozen the rest for another episode.
To form the sheets the pulp is put into a large basin with water, and a mould and deckle is used to scoop the pulp out. I put it on absorbant sheets, pressed it, and finally hung the sheets up to dry. Whew! It sounds like a long process, but it was fun, and now I can only hope it actually forms paper when it's dry!
I've been saving scraps of cedar bark from basket projects with the idea of making paper. I finally had a project that I want to use the paper on, so I started the process last week. The cedar needs to be stripped thinly, cut into 2" lengths and soaked. Next it needs to be cooked with an alkali to break down the fibers so it can be made into pulp. That is where I ran into problems - the alkali could be lye, or soda ash. Lye is no longer sold in hardware stores, and soda ash is available as Arm & Hammer's Super Washing Soda, which of course none of the stores carries any more. The last option is a swimming pool chemical, pH-UP. As there aren't a huge amount of swimming pools around here, it took a while to track some down, but I finally found it at Home Depot!
So, after cooking the bark, then rinsing and rinsing and rinsing, I put it through the blender, a handful at a time, to create this pulp. I used about half, and have frozen the rest for another episode.
To form the sheets the pulp is put into a large basin with water, and a mould and deckle is used to scoop the pulp out. I put it on absorbant sheets, pressed it, and finally hung the sheets up to dry. Whew! It sounds like a long process, but it was fun, and now I can only hope it actually forms paper when it's dry!
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