Ravings of a Mad Crafter

Today is one of those days when your head spins around and you don't know what to do first or what to do at all.  It is just overwhelming some days.  I do need to finish the ATCs I promised to make, I have some great ideas but I'm limited in my abilities.  The room also needs to be picked up now that he fair entries are all in. 

The reason for entering the fair is that the Home Arts display has gotten so small and sad.  Our county fair set up applications online and the fair entries drop to 1/3 what the were.  Sometimes i think that the fair is soon to be a relic.  The fair needs to change and incorporate new ideas because not many people preserve jam anymore.  All I can say is that winning the embroidery blue ribbon isn't much when your embroidery was the only one entered.  That is why I have been enjoying Craftster.com because there are a lot of people who are still doing beautiful and imaginative things.
So today I decided to make some paste paper.  I started with a recipe from the book "The Art of Making Past Papers" by Diane Maurer-Mathison.  It was very easy to make and once it has cooled off I will strain it and mix in colors.  This is something that is really fun to do it is like being a kid and not told to color inside the lines.  Here are a couple of pages I have left after my last paste paper session.

Paste paper.

I think that they are really cool and have a wonderful texture.  If you haven't guessed yet paste paper is finger painting!  If it has a down side it is that it is more organized but only if you want it to be.  Both papers were made by putting colored paste on a wet sheet of watercolor paper.  Then I blotted around with different tools.  These I used a sponge on.  Some I took the tear off section of the watercolor paper and blotted around with it.  The paste paper book is excellent.  The author explains different techniques and has wonderful examples. 

This time I am going to think out the papers a little more then last time.  What I want is to make a design on the paper and then put a colored paste on top.  That way when I start removing paste the original design will peek through.  The book has some wonderful examples of this and other ideas.

I also finished making paper out of all the scraps I collected.  I'm really amazed at how much paper I got back out of the waste.  One thing I did today was trying to pull a sheet of paper with lace.  It didn't work so I just tried pressing the lace into the wet paper with a sponge.  We shall see if it works.  Now to do some coloring.