Back in late January on return from holidays I noticed that a couple of my daphne bushes were looking very sad, I think they had got wet feet, one had died and the leaves on the other had gone very yellow. What does a papermaker do but steam the stems and cook up the inner bark then stick it in the fridge!
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| A healthy daphne |
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| The stems in the steamer |
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| The stripped stems |
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| Two hours later the inner bark ready to cook |
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Sheets of coffee chaff paper. Last year I was sent a big box of coffee chaff,
I cooked some up and washed and made paper without any beating. |
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| The backs of my sheeting couching cloths, the coffee paper shrunk quite a lot. |
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| The third lot of sheets that are part of the keepsake exchange for Watermarks 2012, FDH and IAPMA joint meeting in Cleveland. These sheets are bluebell flower stems courtesy of Beverly Bennett who brought a giant bag of dried stems to the last Papermakers of Victoria meeting laminated with well beaten cardamon stems and leaves from Margaret Mason's garden. Koala, kangaroo and wombat signs were made from gaffer tape to form stencils. |
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| As usual I have gone over the top my keepsakes are taking ages to put together, they have daphne, then coffee chaff then the laminated cardamom and bluebell (scilla), I have done about a third. |
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| I have a bit of a butterfly theme happening at the moment, yabbers are making a range of butterflies for the PoV exhibition that's to be held at Open Drawer in November. I have made these with black card and coloured New Zealand Flax, I liked them so much I decided to frame some. |
I have used butterflies on books and cards
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| I also made some origami butterflies out of paper I made from recycled teabags, I had asked the T'Arts to save me some teabags then remembered how well teabags work with photocopy transfer using oil of wintergreen. This pic shows the original butterfly and the transfer onto teabag and the paper that was under the teabag. |
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| Lemons on our tree |
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| Lemons again transferred onto a piece of silk that Ruth left under the teabags she was collecting for me. |
5 comments:
Gail, this is fascinating! Every photo was just so interesting. Your butterflies are stunning. I know nothing about paper making but you make me wish I'd done it instead of so many other things.
Thanks Carol,
paper is quite addictive so be careful what you wish for!
I like your transfers, Gail, but did you also "lose" the original butterflies bright colour?
Hi Di,
I did lose a bit of the brightness, partly because of the tea stains in the paper and the fact that not all the image transfers.
Did you mix anything into the coffee chaff? I work for a roaster and I've been trying to make paper out of the chaff, but the sheets are too brittle.
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