I tried using skeleton leaves in a small blue bowl, and I'm pretty pleased at how it turned out.














I had trouble photographing the bowl to show the skeleton leaves clearly, so here's a second scan showing the underside. The leaves are undyed, and a cream color, so they create a subtle effect.

This little bowl (3" high) is available for trade or purchase.

I bought some more skeleton leaves that are dyed different colors, so I will be trying some more bowls with skeleton leaves in them in the next few weeks. Let's see, I have gold, copper, dark blue, dark green, olive, red, black, and silver at least; if there's a particular color combination you'd like me to try, let me know and I'll give it a try.

F snapped up the red bowl, but I know it had several other admirers. I have to admit, working with red paper is not my favorite. It stains my shop cloths, and my papermaking mould, and my stainless (ha!) steel casting bowl, thus leaving me with a lot of laundry. I made another red bowl for S, which I will post after she returns from vacation. And I'd be happy to make red bowls on commission, if people want to arrange a trade beforehand. But I think that it will be rare that I'll work with red just for the fun of it.

But, here's an exception! When I was done with F's bowl, I had some red pulp left over, so I made some red greeting cards with the purple angel wings.


I made some of the cards with just one flower, and some of the cards with two flowers. I think the cards with one flower should be used landscape-style, and the cards with two flowers portrait-style. But the insides are blank, so the new owner can use them either way.

Ten cards, on cream Judi-kins card stock (100% post consumer recycled content), plus envelopes. They are available for purchase or trading if anyone wants them.

I posted about a little red bowl I made a few weeks ago. M ended up taking that one home, but F also liked it and wanted me to make a larger one with the same colors.



No streaking problems on this one, I'm relieved to say. F, if you like it, it's yours!

If she passes on it, it's up for trade to anyone else who finds it appealing. I also have other bowls that have gone unclaimed; help me clean up my studio and make an offer on any of the available bowls!

I usually make a few sheets of paper after I'm done making a bowl, so that I have lots of different colors and textures around for artwork. I made this set of 10 cards from five of the sheets of paper. Each sheet is large enough to make two cards. Perhaps longtime readers will recognize the bowls that were made from those batches of pulp! The finished bowls are darker than the cards made with the same pulp, because the bowls have a mod podge finish on them and the cards do not.


Cream Judi-Kins cardstock (100% post-consumer recycled paper), with matching envelopes. Available for trading to anyone who might want them.

After I finished my beautiful green bowl, I still had some paper pulp left. I know from experience that the shredded stuff doesn't make pretty paper castings, so I decided to make a set of greeting cards.

The cardstock that I like to use is sold in sets of 10 cards with 10 envelopes. I like using this particular brand (Judy Kins) because it is made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper. It has a creamy color to it.

I made five sheets of paper from the green bowl pulp, and each sheet made two cards. I use Glue Stick to adhere it to the front of the card, and I put the cards in a paper press to make sure they get glued down well.



If there's someone out there that would like to trade for these cards, leave a comment.

I liked the shredded angel wings very much, but I've discovered in the past that when I shred the whole blossom, the seed portion causes green speckles in the paper. With the orange shredded bowl I posted yesterday, I just shredded the petals and not the seeds. But it is a tedious process to remove the seeds from all the blossoms before shredding, so I thought I'd try to make a green bowl and disguise the fact that there are seeds in the paper. It worked out beautifully!


I threw in some gold and green glitter, and some darker green tissue paper from my tissue paper grab bag from J and L. I love working with tissue paper; it breaks down into fine dark fibers and adds a wonderful texture to the color of the bowls. You have to see this one in real life to truly appreciate it.

I'm going to keep this one in my personal collection, I think.

I like the combination of orange with the angel wings, but I am getting bored making essentially the same bowl in different colors. So I thought I'd try shredding the flowers and adding the shredded flowers to the pulp instead. The pulp was orange and yellow, and I added some gold glitter as well. It was after it was done that I realized that the large bowl I made for Geri is very similar! But this one is only 3" tall.

This one turned out beautifully, unlike Geri's bowl which had some dark blotches inside due to residual dampness in the paper. I have learned my lesson; I let the bowls dry for a day or two off the mold before I start sealing them in mod podge.

This one is up for adoption.

First, a note about money and trades:

I don't make bowls to make money. I do it because I like the process. I can't keep all the bowls; I just don't have enough storage space. So I'm happy to have them go to new homes. Ideally, I like trading them, because I know money is in short supply for most people, and because I enjoy having souvenirs from other friends in my home. But if you're not an artist, or a crafter, please don't assume you have nothing to trade. You might have a deck of tarot cards that I don't have, or you might have finished reading a book that I haven't read yet and would be happy to pass it along to a new home. Maybe you have some art supplies left over from a previous project (like glitter, or sponge applicators, or paintbrushes, or card stock) that I would enjoy using. If you're local, perhaps we can get together for dinner or dessert.

The point is this: I like making bowls, and if you like a particular bowl and want to strike up some kind of deal for it, email me and we'll work it out.

OK, onto today's display. This time, I tried combining the purple angel wings with green. I like the way this one came out!


Again, it's the smaller size bowl (about 3" tall), and it's available for trading if someone wants it.

Still trying different colors as background for the purple angel wings. I bought a bottle of purple glitter at a local art store this week, and tried it in this bowl. It's not as fine as the glitter I've used in the past, so it's easily seen in this scan.



This is the smaller-sized bowl (about 3" tall), and it's available for sale or trade if anyone wants it.

Tapati suggested trying red paper with the purple angel wings, so I did. I don't use red that often, because it is such a strong color and tends to dominate over all the others. I did slip some purple sparklies in the paper, though, just to try and break the spell of all that red!

Unfortunately, I finished this one at the same time I finished the orange bowl, and they both ended up getting streaks on the outside of the bowls due to water in the sponge applicator. This bowl streaked worse than the orange bowl. They're both still available to someone who won't mind the dark streaks. The insides look great!

Both this one and the orange bowl were built on the smaller mold, so they are about 3" tall. I like using the smaller mold for experiments, because it takes less time and paper to make the smaller bowls.

Geri wanted to see orange today, so here's an orange experiment with angel wings. (Tapati was the inspiration behind this one; she wanted to see the combination of orange with the purple angel wings.)

It's wonderfully vivid, but unfortunately, there are some dark streaks in the outside of the bowl. It's not too bad on this bowl; there are only a few and they are small. Totally my error, too. I use a sponge applicator to put on the two coats of mod podge. The first coat is key; it must be done with a completely dry sponge applicator, or else the water in the sponge will leave (you guessed it) dark streaks. Wet paper is darker than dry paper, so if water gets in the paper, and then it's sealed in with mod podge, it's going to have those dark streaks forever.

This bowl is up for adoption; if you like it, I'll give you a very sweet deal because of the dark streaks.

This one is yummy. Plain yellow paper looked too bright, so I diluted it 50/50 with white paper. It was white paper from Frances, which is mostly credit card applications and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it had actual shredded sham credit cards in the mix, which my blender refused to pulp. So the white part of the bowl is a little chunky. But still, I really like how it turned out. This one was done on the smaller bowl, so it's about 3" tall. I find it a lot easier to do experiments on the small bowl, since they take less time and paper to make.

I think I'm going to hold onto this one for a little while; there's a craft exhibit I'd like to do, and I'd like this bowl to be one of the bowls in the exhibit. But I'll let it go after that, so let me know if you're interested.

I'm still playing with various colors combined with the purple angel wings. This one is blue and purple and pink with some glitter in it for a bit of shine.



It's a little thin (it flexes a bit when you press on it on the sides), but oh, I really like it. I'm going to hold onto this one for the Jolene Fund auction, but I did want to show it to you all.

I bought a one pound bag of purple angel wings recently, and most of the time I've used them to make white bowls like the one in my icon. White bowls are especially appealing now that I have a huge bag of shredded junk mail from Frances! But I was getting bored with the white, so I thought I'd do some bowls that weren't white, to see what colors worked best with the purple.

This one was made with a blend of pink, lavender and white, with white and pink glitter. (Yes, Frances, your white paper was in there! That's why you can see the flecks of yellow and red and blue in the bowl; they were from all those credit card applications!)

It's up for adoption if anyone is interested in trading for it. So is the dark blue bowl I posted earlier this week.

I've been kind of lax about documenting my bowls lately. Kat was the inspiration for this one. She wanted me to make her some light blue paper and some dark blue paper for a calligraphy project. While I was at it, I did some extra in those colors to make a bowl. The dark blue has silver and blue sparkles in it to look like stars.

I still had half the Victoria's Secret catalog left over from making a bowl for E, so I decided to make a second bowl with the leftovers. I didn't want it to be just like the one I made with the first half of the catalog.

I pondered the first bowl. A lot of pink flecks were catching my eye. Each page of the catalog had a bright pink banner splashed across the top of the pages. What to complement pink flecks in a pink bowl ... how about pink angel wings?
A bulky flower at the base prevents this bowl from sitting completely flat, but it was so pretty that I didn't want to remove a layer. I think it came out well, considering it's gray. Gray isn't my favorite bowl color, but I like how pink and gray look together. And I especially like how the word "LUNGE" showed up inside the bowl! Of course I had to show that side of the bowl in the photograph!

Of the two bowls, E preferred the other bowl, so that one is taken. But if you have designs on this one, leave me a comment and let's arrange a trade!

E was interested in doing a trade for a bowl ... if I would make the bowl out of underwear ads. Hmm, can't say I had piles of trash paper with underwear ads on it, waiting to be turned into a bowl. But I did have a Victoria's Secret catalog! It's a typical mail-order catalog: glossy, soft paper with text and printed photographs.

I don't really like using glossy commercial paper like mail-order catalogs. The wet pulp is kind of slimy because of the shiny finish on the pages, and the resulting paper is gray. Why gray, you may wonder? The catalogs have all these nifty photos in them; don't they count toward a pretty color? Not enough, it turns out. If you thumb through a catalog, you note that most of it is white pages with black type, so when it's put through the blender, it makes gray pulp. So I warned E that the bowl would be gray, but I would not blend it all super-fine so that hopefully some fragments of photos were visible in the bowl.

Here's the result:



I made a second bowl with the rest of the Victoria's Secret catalog; I'll post about that separately.

I ordered a pound of purple angel wings and a pound of pink angel wings. They were so cheap compared to buying the half-ounce packages via papermaking suppliers. They're something like $4 in the half ounce package, and less than $7 by the pound! Even with shipping, they were only $9 a pound. Such a bargain!

So, you'll be seeing me using angel wings in this week's projects. Here's some purple wings, using cream-colored paper for the bowl:

I like the cream; I think it suits the purple quite nicely. I was surprised at how different it looks, comparing it to a bowl made with plain white junk mail. I thought the difference would be more subtle.











I'm working on a cream-colored bowl now with the pink angel wings. Photos in a few days.

No one wanted to make a donation to the Mass Red Ribbon Ride for the pretty two-toned bowl I posted on Wednesday. I was surprised; I thought it was a really beautiful one. Ah well, perhaps this two-toned bowl will be more appealing.

I made this one last week. A variety of purples and blues, plus some iridescent glittery flakes in the pulp. I like the iridescent flakes, but they don't tend to stick well when they are close to the surface, and are easily dislodged when I am putting on the mod podge finish. I try to nudge them back into place and let the first coat of mod podge cement them down; the second coat of mod podge seals them in.
I think I will hold onto this one for a little while, but I'll be experimenting with other two-tone bowls in the weeks ahead.

My beloved S showed me his new Mass Red Ribbon Ride shirt this weekend. I got intrigued by the combination of yellow, red and purple. It was so pretty! So I decided to make a bowl with those colors.

Once I was actually in the studio, I decided to add orange to the mix, and make the inside of the bowl yellow and the outside orange, with flecks of red and purple in the orange layer. (Just a little! I didn't want it to mess up the color of the orange.) I love the way it turned out!

This one is up for adoption. But in order to get it, you have to give a donation to the Mass Red Ribbon Ride and support S' fundraising efforts for his team, Wheels of Fortune. I can give you the info on how to donate. In case more than one person wants it, higher donation wins. (Well, actually, I have a second bowl in the smaller size, same colors; I can support two donors if one doesn't mind getting the smaller bowl!)

So open up your wallets! It's for a good cause, and you get a nifty bowl for donating!

I had some dark purple statice, so I tried using it in a base of yellow paper to make a bowl. It's not bad. But the inside is a bit bumpy, because the flowers don't all lie flat. I don't think the colors in this photo are very accurate; the flowers look black, and yet they are purple. I also added some purple shiny stuff to the paper, so up close you will see purple sparkles. But I don't think it shows up well in the photo either. (The purple sparkles are the little purple hyphen-like things you see in the yellow part of the bowl.)



This bowl is up for trade for whoever finds it charming.

I made this bowl with S as an interested observer. She helped pick out the colors and the design. It uses mostly yellow junk mail, but I did add some iridescent green Easter basket plastic grass (cut into smaller pieces), and some dragonflies cut out from some green construction paper.

I traded it for a painting by A. I love the painting! I love her! You must see her joyous paintings at her website. http://www.iamatree.org

I gave this one to J for our birthday last week. (No, we're not twins, but we do have the same birthday.) I made this on the smaller metal bowl, so it's about 3" tall. Purple, pink, blue ... lots of different colors in there! And not all were finely blended, so it had some nice readable chunks in it. (I do like it when some of the original printing survives the papermaking process.)

<lj user="spinningwheels"> built me a bookshelf in my papermaking studio space, so that I can keep my papermaking books and my finished bowls from cluttering up the counter space.


Yay, I love it! I have more room to move around now.












Thanks, honey. You are a rock star and I adore you. *kiss*

The bowl is yellow, the rose petals are not! The petals actually started out cream-colored, with a little bit of pink in them. They were well dried, and I had hopes that they would retain their color. This was a bowl on commission for C, who gave me both the paper and the petals and asked for a small-sized bowl.

When the bowl was still wet, the rose petals appeared to still be cream-colored with pink, but by the time it dried, the petals had turned to light brown. Still, I think they look nice against the yellow. I still have more of the rose petals left, and C would like a red bowl with the remaining petals. Watch for it; hopefully I'll make that one in the next week or so.

I sent this bowl to D, who was a wonderful host to us in San Francisco in July. She said she loved green and blue, so I made this with some green concert flyers (knowing she and her husband are avid music fans) and some blue construction paper from a child's art project (knowing they have several little artists in their family, too). I also added some glitter for shine.

I love the way this one came out; it's very sturdy and smooth. I made this on the small bowl cast, so it's about 3" high.

I made a purchase at Victoria's Secret recently, and the cashier wrapped my clothing in bright pink tissue paper overprinted with VS's logo before putting it into a bag. I loved the color; it was very intense. So I decided to save it for a papermaking project.

While I was prowling through my box of paper to find something to use with the tissue paper, I uncovered a pile of white paper from a computer manual. Perfect! Brainy, yet sexy. :)

I also had some statice flowers dyed deep pink, so I added the flower petals to the pulp and came up with this:

Instead of photographing them separately so that you could see the texture better, I took this photo so that you could see the difference in size between the smaller bowl (about 3" high and 5.5" in diameter) and the larger one (about 5" high and 7.5" in diameter).

The flowers were annoying to work with; I had to pull the petals off the flower and just use the petals, because the green parts of the flower were too large. They'd just end up being big chunks in the paper, and I didn't want lumpy bowls, and I didn't want to blend the flowers and lose the petal shapes. Some of the flowers gave up the petals easily when they were pulled, but some did not. It was very time consuming.

Then when I was finishing the bowls with mod podge, the petals that landed on the surface of the bowl were pulling off from the friction of the brush. Dabbing instead of stroking with the brush on the first coat seemed to help, but I still lost quite a few.

The flowers did cause some staining like I had with the calendula flowers on previous projects. If you look closely, you can see some yellow staining on the outside of the large bowl. It wasn't nearly as vivid as the calendula staining was, so I was able to keep the outside of the bowl unpainted. (On the calendula bowls, the staining looked like toast; it was very dark. I painted the outside of those bowls to disguise the stains.)

I really like the large one; I may keep that one for a while. But the little one is available for trading.

Most of the time when I make paper bowls, I use a steel mixing bowl that is 5" high and 7.5" in diameter. One of my friends wanted a bowl that is smaller than that, so I started experimenting with a steel mixing bowl that is 3" high and 5.5" in diameter.


That's the small bowl. I really love how it turned out, so I think I'm going to keep that one. I used the same batch of pulp to make a larger one, and the photo of that one is right here.









The larger one is up for trade; make me an offer I can't refuse. :)

I used the last of my angel's wing supply to make these two bowls. But I found a dealer on eBay who sells them by the pound, and has reasonable shipping charges! The dealer offers peach, pink, bleached white, and the purple I used here. I can't think of any color combos with the peach or the bleached white that would really thrill me, so I think I may just order the pink and the purple. Wish they had other colors, since they are dyed anyway. Wanted: yellow, dark blue, red, maroon, green, orange. I wonder if the dealer can have other colors made. I wonder what it would take to dye the bleached white ones myself.

Not long ago, I wrote a tutorial on making paper from junk mail. This tutorial is a continuation of that one.

So, you've made a bunch of paper, and now you've got a Rubbermaid bin of leftover paper pulp floating in water. What do you do with it? Well, you can water a tree or a garden with it; the pulp will sit on the surface of the soil for a bit, but it will dissolve eventually. Or you can filter off the pulp by pouring it through an old nylon, or through a strainer, and let the water go down the sink or the toilet. Please don't dump the pulp directly into your plumbing system; you will definitely clog your pipes over time. Paper pulp is sticky, and it does cling to surfaces.


I like to filter off the pulp by pouring the contents of the Rubbermaid bin through a strainer held over the sink. This will make quite a few paper castings.









Here's one of the moulds that I use. This one is made by the Brown Bag company. There must be collectors out there; I can never find cheap ones on eBay. But keep an eye out at yard sales; I've found two that way. Another company that makes paper casting moulds is Arnold Grummer.







With your fingers, pinch a bit of the wet pulp from the strainer and put it on the mould until the mould is covered. You don't need to spray the mould with release spray first, although it certainly helps if you do. The pulp in this photo is actually too thick; I took these photos a month ago, and I've been experimenting with putting less on the moulds now, with much better results.





Stand over a sink. Hold the mould in one hand, and with a sponge, gently press the pulp into the mould and get the water out of there. Wring out your sponge as necessary. This photo shows the mould after all the sponging is done.








Leave the mould to sit for a day or two until it looks like it's dry. You might need to take an exacto knife or a razor blade to free a corner of the casting, and then you can pop it off the mould. The flower pieces in the original pulp disguise the designs in the castings, unfortunately.








So I leave you with a photo that shows some better paper castings. The plainer the pulp, the better the castings.

I'd love to hear about your experiments with paper castings; what have you tried?

I tried another experiment with calendula flowers, with the same result as the last time: when it dried, the outside turned brown and looked like it had been through a toaster. So I painted the outside on this one gold as well.

I must admit, I made this with C in mind, knowing she likes purple.

A long time ago, I posted about a bowl I was trying to make. I had wanted to make a bowl that was purple on the outside, and cream-colored on the inside. But when I tried to take the bowl off the cast, the cream layer clung to the bowl and ripped. The purple part was still fine, though, and I hated to lose it. So I pondered what to do to fix it. After I tore out all the cream layer, there were still cream fibers clinging all over the inside; I couldn't just leave it like that. And when I tried to adhere another cream layer on it, it wouldn't stick a second time, either.


Here's what the bowl looked like on the outside. It had a little bit of glitter in it, and I really liked the color.











So I painted the inside with silver paint. It was better, but still not exactly what I wanted.

I tried one more time; this time, I put a layer of glitter paint on top of the silver. It's transparent, so the original silver showed through. But it seemed to really perk it up; now I really liked the inside a lot. It's very touchable.