Recycling Old Paper and Junk Mail into Art

This guide is an introduction to how to make handmade paper, or, more accurately, how to recycle old junk paper into new paper to use in your scrapbooking, altered art, love letters, Christmas cards, Valentines, or other artistic and crafty creations. I learned how to do this as part of a college printmaking course I took, but I think that it will be of interest to artists and crafters who work in a variety of media. It will also be of interest to anyone who is interested in eco-friendly practices, and recycling to conserve the environment's resources.

The first thing to remember is that your new paper will only be as good as the paper you start with. The better quality that you start with, the better you will end up with. In my experience it is not worth recycling old newspapers into handmade paper. Examples of good papers to use:

• Resume paper from outdated resumes.
• Art papers that you messed up (old drawings that didn't work out, etc.)
• Pages from old books can be good to use, depending on the book.
• Old stationery can be good too.
• Scrapbooking papers that have become too creased, crinkled or damaged to use in your scrapbook

It doesn't matter if these papers already have writing all over them. In fact, it is desirable to start with paper that has already been used and is no longer needed for its original purpose.

In some, but not all, cases you can recycle your junk mail into beautiful handmade paper. Take a good look at the paper before deciding to use it. Do not use glossy paper for this project. Old magazine pages, while they do work, don't usually give the best results. A paper that has coating on it is not desirable. If it looks like good quality uncoated paper then give it a try. In addition to lots of papers to recycle, you will need:

Here is a picture of the papermaking kit that I use to create my handmade papers.

Credit: Amy Solovay

Copyright: Amy Solovay