So you have decided or at least you are very interested in creating your own paper but you are not quite sure, what materials you will actually need to make paper and what materials are the best. After you read this article you will be able to make an educated choice on what materials to get and where to get them.
So what materials do you need to make paper? You will need Water, paper scraps, plastic cups, and a blender for creating your paper pulp. Mould and deckle (would maybe have to build this one), Towels or a bigger piece of cloth, and wood boards or a thicker plastic sheet for pulling the paper. An Acrilyc sheet or a bigger glad sheet for letting the paper dry.
What Materials Do I Need For Creating the Paper Pulp and Where Do I Get Them?
It kind of depends on how you want to create your paper pulp but generally, you will definitely need some water, plastic cups and a blender.
For water, you can just use regular tap water. If you are living in an area, where the tap water quality is lacking then you should boil it before using it just to be sure.
The plastic cups are only used for holding your paper pulp and water, so pretty much any cups will do as long as they are big enough. So get plastic cups, that are quite durable and they need to be able to hold at least one quart (one litre) of liquid.
You will also need a blender but I would highly suggest not to use your kitchen blender if you want to continue using it in the kitchen afterwards. So either get a cheap blender for your paper making projects or get a good new one and use older blender from your kitchen.
And the final thing, and that’s probably the most important one, is choosing what you want to use as a base for your paper pulp. You can use quite a lot of different things as a base. The most common thing to use is old paper. But you can also use plant leaves, wood sawdust and many other things.
The good thing here is, none of the things you use for the paper pulp will cost you anything or at least not very much.
You can buy all of these materials locally or online quite easily. there is no special tool, that you need to get yet.
What Materials Do I Need For Pulling the Paper and Where Do I Get Those?
In this part, we will see the first more specific tools, that we will need. But don´t worry, you can either build them yourself quite easily or you can buy them online from a more specific store.
The first thing is also the most complicated thing to get. You will need a mould and deckel for pulling the paper. It is kind of hard to find this tool in a crafts store for hobbyists but you can easily build this one yourself. There is a great tutorial for building a mould and deckle from “Make something”
You will also need either towels or something similar to clean your mould and deckel and to press your paper on after pulling it. I would suggest using old towels, that you don´t need anymore or scrap pieces of cloth.
The cloth has to be absorbent though!
And finally, you will also need either a wood board for floating and applying pressure to the pulled paper or you can also get a plastic spatula. But the spatula has to be quite big and it is generally easier to just use wood.
You can get everything you need for building the mould and deckel and the rest for pulling paper from your local hardware store.
If you don´t want to build your own mould and deckel then you can also buy one from an online store. It will generally be a little more expensive, though. You can check the price right here. This is a complete kit for paper making, that is more than enough to make your first couple of papers.
What Do I Need For Drying my Homemade Paper?
So the last step in making your own paper is letting it dry.
The good news is, that you don’t need all that many materials for this step. The only thing you really need for this step is a surface, that you can let your paper dry on.
So I would highly suggest using either a glass surface or an acrylic surface. These surfaces will not soak in water and they will not deform while water is drying on them. So these materials are the perfect materials for letting the paper dry.
You can get glass sheets as well as acrylic sheets easily in your local hardware store. Although if you want to use bigger sheets they can get quite pricy. I would suggest using smaller sheets and just putting one or two sheets of paper on one sheet of glass or acrylic instead of getting a big sheet of glass or acrylic that has enough space for all of your paper sheets at once.
How Much Will it Cost Me To Buy Everything, That I Need for Paper Making?
So if you want to start making your own paper, then you will have to get a lot of different materials.
If you are just starting paper making can be quite expensive when you have to buy a lot of these materials.
However, if you already have a lot of these materials at home, like a blender, that you can use, scrap towels or even scrap wood, that you can use, then it could be quite cheap for you to start out with papermaking.
In my experience, you will have to spend between 20 and 80 dollars to get all the necessary materials for creating your own homemade paper. But after this first investment, you don´t have to spend all that much to make paper. Most of the time you can make new paper without spending anything.
So if you are using scrap paper to create a new one then you will only need water and you have everything you need to make new paper. And both of these materials are easy to home by for free.
So Compared to other craft hobbies paper making is actually not all that expensive!
If you have any more questions about making your own paper feel free to ask me by leaving a comment down below and I will answer your question and soon as possible.
Hi, I am a passionate maker and professional prop maker for the entertainment industry. I use my woodworking, programming, electronics, and illustration know-how to create interactive props and puzzles for Escape Games and marketing agencies. And I share my knowledge and my experience on this blog with you so that you can become a maker yourself.