Make Your Own Handmade Paper!
Learning objectives

Express opinion crafting techniques and colour choices

Teamwork: listening and communicating

Decide collectively what materials to use

Learn about the need for recycling and re-purposing waste products

Produce handmade paper to take home, or use in the classroom
Subjects
English, Art, Craft, Design & Technology
Preparation
Ask the children to think about how much paper they use every day. Ask them to bring in used
newspapers, letters, and any spare paper from home that would otherwise be thrown away. You
could also have some ready in the classroom from previous activities.
Each child will need a small wooden frame (an empty picture frame works well), with some fine
mesh (with holes around 1mm in size) secured across it. This creates a flat sieve. This frame will be
the size of the sheet of paper that you will make. You will also need some large trays, larger than
the frames you’re using, and some pieces of felt or cloth.
The Activity!
1. Split the children into pairs or groups.
2. Ask the children to discuss how much paper they think they use each day. Ask them to write
a list of all the times they use paper or put the paper in the bin.
3. Ask the children how much paper they think their family uses each day.
4. Tell pairs or small groups of children to tear up the paper into tiny pieces and mix them
together. Tell them they also have to remove all staples and pieces that aren’t paper.
5. Soak the paper in a bowl of water for 30-40 minutes.
If you want the finished paper to be white, add half a cup of white vinegar to the mixture while
soaking. If you’d like the paper to be coloured, the children can experiment by adding food
colouring to the mixture.
6. Once the paper has soaked, it can be mashed in a blender or the children can mash it with
pestle and mortars, or other blunt objects.
7. Fill the trays halfway with water, and add the pulp. The amount of pulp will determine how
thick the paper will be. Experiment! You want to create a flat later of pulp on the mesh, but
you don’t want a thick layer of sludge either. Stir the mixture and remove any huge clumps
that won’t break down.
If you want the paper to be used for stationary, add two teaspoons of liquid starch to the
mixture. This will seal the paper so ink will not disperse on it. Without the starch, ink will spread
a little through the fibres, but this is also fine if it’s the effect you’d like!
8. Sink the frame in the pulp mixture, mesh side down. Let the mixture in at the top so a layer
of pulp appears. If it’s too thin, add more; if the layer is too thick, remove some pulp!
9. Lift the frame out, and press some felt or cloth gently on the layer of pulp to draw out some
of the moisture. Repeat until the paper only feels damp.
10. You can now carefully lift out the sheet of paper and flatten out any bubbles. Let it dry in
the sun, and voila! You have your own sheet of handmade paper!
Extension activity
Explore which other items can be repurposed from waste materials, for example using the wet
felting method to turn sheep wool into felt, crafting jars into lanterns, and making old tins and cans
into plant pots.
Links to other Topics
This activity can be tied into other lesson plans exploring recycling, and the awareness of how much
waste we produce as a nation. Creating our own paper can also help to show young people how
they can help reduce deforestation.