PAPER MAKING IN UKRAINE

 Not too long ago I had the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for years... make my own paper.  Sometimes I do crafts with some of the neighbor kids and I wanted to give them this experience.  The above picture is the paper pulp sitting in it's tray with geranium flower petals and some sparkle stuff.

 Our first attempt was a disaster.  The paper was the thickness of a cookie.  So we did some other crafting that night and I decided I needed to work on it some more myself.  This page has leaves.

 After literally years of looking in Ukraine, I found this plastic vat that was just the right size to fit the screen I had that has to dip down into the mixture to pick up the paper pulp (made with my blender).

 After many tried for days to follow I finally got down to TOO thin where the paper ended up with holes as above.  So with much trial and error I figured it out.  The kids came back over and we made cards with the hand made paper.  They really liked that and we had such fun.

 This is my play with paints and some stencils.

 From the paper I made I have done my first signatures for a bound book.  Signatures are the folded pages that go into it.  I've made many mini-books in the past, but never binding my own so this was a first for me. 

 I also made a cover for my signatures and bound them with ribbon.  I'm far from done as I've yet to decorate the cover, (except for a bit of spray color) but I won't do that until I decide what I shall use it for.

For quite some time I debated what I would do with this book when it was entirely finished.  Finally I came to the conclusion I couldn't do anything with it.  As simple and maybe even a bit crude as it is, it is my first bound book so I must keep it.  One more checked off the bucket list.  What do you think?