Potpourri Paper Printing!

Last week I took a risk with paper making and decided to see what would happen if I used Potpourri as a base for pulp. It was a welcome change from the usual stuff we have been doing previously as I didn't know what to expect.

The Potpourri I used was a lime variety and similar in appearance to what you see below (except green). The first thing I had to do when take it out of it's packaging, was to break it down. I did this by wrapping handfuls in a cloth and then using a rolling pin to hammer the different objects into smaller pieces. I had to do this several times in order for the potpourri to be suitable to go in the blender.

When that was done, I started to soak the potpourri pieces in water and to my surprise, they started to foam! The chemicals or perfume that had been absorbed by the dried objects had started to seep out again and I found it very difficult to see a positive outcome with what I currently had. I decided that I would try and remove as much of the foam as possible, so using a strainer, I put it under the tap and began removing the foam. This of course took too long and I was concerned about wasting water, so instead I took to using a spray bottle, which turned out to do a much better job. 

This is what my soaked, tiny potpourri looked like:

After I had repeated this process, I ended up with a pile of soggy, unattractive potpourri pulp. From then on, I knew it would be easier to work with because I had removed most of the excess chemicals, so I didn't have to worry so much about the foaming.

I then added it to water and with assistance, tested if it would be good enough on it's own to form a pulp good enough to make paper from. The result wasn't very pleasing so I decided to cut up squares of a light paper to give a little strength to the mix. The fibers in the newly added paper seemed like they would bind well with my potpourri.

After this was all blended, it was time to start collecting sheets using the deckle. The following is an example of how the paper turned out once ready for drying on a j-cloth.

Apologies for the bad photos, my phone had just done a camera firmware update and reverted to default shutter speed!

Once this had dried, I was actually very pleased with the results and in today's class, I was able to produce a lino cut that I can use as a test to see if printing works on different types of handmade paper. It printed a LOT better than I had expected.