How many times have you wished you could do something useful with your old bank statements? Is there no better place for your filled up Post-it Notes than the bin?
Well here's the answer. Be cheap, environmentally friendly AND look really groovy whenever you need to write a letter. Make your own paper!
- Collect all unwanted paper. It should be gum free, should not be glossy, and of fairly high quality (not newspapers for example). The more colourful the better.
- Tear the equivalent of about nine sheets of A4 into small pieces, of about half an inch square.
- Soak the pieces overnight.
- Take about a golf ball sized chunk and blend it in a food processor with half a litre of warm water till it's quite runny (but don't over do it!).
- Repeat 4. until all has been blended.
- Fill a big bowl half full of water. Put about a dessert spoon of PVA glue in and stir. Add a cup full of paper pulp into the bowl and stir.
- Get some small holed mesh and slide it in the bowl sideways. Then turn it flat so that the pulp sits on it. Carefully take it out and put it on a towel (pulp side up).
- Place a J-cloth over it. Then put something hard (like a flat piece of wood) over it too and stand on it for ten seconds! After doing this the paper should peel off on the cloth.
- After a few sheets have been made put more pulp in the water and more glue and then repeat steps 7. and 8. You should be able to make about 12 sheets of A5 paper.
- Leave to dry over night before peeling the paper off the cloth. Voila!