Papermaking with Garden Plants & Common Weeds

Handmade paper has a unique texture and an individual quality that makes it not only a surface to write or print on, but also an object of beauty. With a small investment in equipment (or the supplies to make it from scratch), a small harvest of backyard weeds or garden plants, and the guidance of papermaking expert Helen Hiebert, anyone can make exquisite papers right in the home kitchen. Hiebert’s basic papermaking techniques, laid out in illustrated step-by-step instructions, make it easy to blend and shape a variety of organic papers from such common plants as hosta, milkweed, and thistledown, as well as the more unusual pineapple, yucca, and seaweed. She describes how to collect, harvest, and process the plant fibers and then create sheets using both Western and Japanese techniques.