Recently I was working with my coworker, the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, to help broaden my knowledge of rare books, paper making, book binding, etc. We started talking about watermarks, their uses and how to identify them, and he pulled out our copy of Liber chronicarum (1493) along with a backlight. What better way to learn about watermarks than to see one lit up!
Pages of Pages - a book I entered into the county fair this year. Finally pulped another batch of missprints, this time working with Hammermill 20lb Cream (off-white in color). Tucked some leaves under the sheets when I dried them for a nice debossing effect.
This paper gave up its toner a little more easily than others I've worked with, resulting in a batch with strong "cookies 'n cream" vibes- lightly speckled everywhere. The spots of text that are still visible are infrequent but still charming. Will have a macro post of them later. Has an actual deckled fore-edge and a very tidy black and white sewn headband. Cover's a bit lumpy because the paper I make isn't large enough to fully span it, thus there's some layering going on.
Always pleasing to reclaim squandered pages and then to immediately use up all the freshly made supplies- I tend to get ~20 sheets per batch and this needed all but a couple of them.
I am reopening my bindery and I finally decided to sell some of my latest handmade books and paper. If you don't know me, I'm a bookbider and papermaker based in Italy who works with plants and flowers to make useful things.
I kinda have an emergency and I have to save some extra money to pay my yearly dog vaccination so I will be forever grateful if you consider a little donation. You can directly donate at: paypal.me/jennventoart ⭐✨🫰
Contact me via private message or check out more of my work at @jenn.traditional.papermaking on Instagram.
Thank you so much if you like, share or comment this post, it means a lot to me and it helps my small business grow every day!
Some prints I made on recycled paper!!! This was a pretty decent first attempt at paper I think, but I'm going to try to make the next batch a bit thicker. Tested the paper for printing with my two most recent block prints :)
Adventures in paper making, block printing, and book binding!
First batch of paper was pulp from brown paper grocery bags. I love the speckled look of it, but really struggled getting my pages a consistent thickness and most of them are tissue thin.
So that pamphlet is only decorative, it quite literally shreds if I try writing on it haha! 😅
My second attempt was with recycled printer paper, and I also put a sturdier mesh on my mould which helped with consistency. It still isn't great to write on but I'm happy with the progress I've made!
The block printing was really just a "if you give a mouse a cookie" situation. I have all this paper sitting around now, what else I was I supposed to do with it!!
I just learned that early European papermakers made paper from old rags and textile scraps and they called the processed fibers ready to become paper “stuff”
Ca you imagine a guy in the late 1790’s going “this stuff is horrid” or like saying to their apprentice “go on boy, prepare the stuff”