Bookbinding and Papermaking

     Once upon a time I learned bookbinding and papermaking.  They're great fun.  You should try them!
     For the papermaking, we used an old secondhand electric blender to blend up the pulp which was made from recycled paper and water, and a wedge and deckle we made ourselves to set the paper on.  Before the pulp is dry, you can place things like flowers and horsehair on the wet paper and dry it on, so that it becomes part of the paper, to make it more interesting.  It took many hours for the pulp to dry out so that the paper could be used and then it was rough paper with an interesting texture.
      For the bookbinding, we used paper we marbled ourselves for the book cover, and covered cardboard covers with it in class and sewed paper to the cardboard covers.  After the class was over, I made a little booklet of a haiku poem I wrote from a book I bound myself and covered with gift wrap.  What fun!