What can you do with banana and milkweed, cornhusks and pineapple, wheat straw and mulberry? Make a deranged fruit salad? A chapeau for Carmen Miranda? No! You can make your own unique hand crafted paper from natural materials with this complete how-to guide.
With the step-by-step instructions and full-color photographs in Papermaking with Plants, you’ll learn how to:
· Collect and harvest plant fibers from stalks, barks, leaves, and grasses
· Process, press, dry and finish your paper using both Eastern and Western methods.
· Embellish your paper with natural dyes and decorative materials like flower petals and pine needles
· Craft one-of-a-kind projects such as vegetable papyrus, multipaper collages, and shaped papers including envelopes, lampshades, specialty books, and covers.
Papermaker and artist Helen Hiebert has served as Program Director at Dieu Donne Papermill in New York City for five years, responsible for program development and administration, editing and design of the mill's newsletter, teaching and papermaking. She has written the popular book Papermaking with Plants, and her most recent Storey title is The Papermaker's Companion. Helen's paper products have been featured in the Dieu Donne papermaking exhibitions, and she has taught papermaking workshops at Dieu Donne, the Women's Studio Workshop, the Horticultural Society of New York, and the New York Botanical Garden. Her paper products have appeared in House & Garden and Country Living magazines. She currently resides in Oregon.