She's Crafty | Have You Ever Wondered?

Have you ever wondered how "they" make some of the common things we use every day? Or, have you ever wondered what you would do if "they" ever stopped making them? I know, my kids think I'm weird on that point, too. But, you never know when the apocalypse is coming and, I've learned how to make and do some interesting things by wondering about this. For instance, I can bake my own bread using sourdough as the leavening. I can, in theory, make my own cheese (well, I've made yogurt cheese before--and the yogurt!) And, I can make children's clothing that looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. I can even knit things that sort of fit, as long as it's a scarf (don't ask how my first sweater fit.) Well, along these lines, our blog about making books last week got me to thinking of paper.

Now that we'd kind of know how to make our own books, I thought, what about the paper? How would we make our own paper? The first thing I did was look up papermaking (make sure it's one word) in our library catalog.

There were some interesting titles:
Trash to treasure papermaking, by Arnold E. Grummer
Book making and papermaking, by Deborah Hufford (there's even one for kids!)
Papermaking techniques book, by John Plowman
Step by step papermaking, by David Watson 
The paper maker's companion, by Helen Hiebert


This list took us back to a publication date of 2000, and there were several older titles as well. A pretty respectable list for our library system, I thought. These will keep me busy for a while. I'll start with Trash to treasure paper making because that one will show me how to make recycled paper. That way, if the apocalypse never comes, I can at least be green. And, maybe being green will actually help with the apocalypse thing too...

Then, I expanded my search to Link + and hit the mother-lode of papermaking books! There were 174 "most relevant" titles! Some of the first few of these were:
Arnold Grummer's complete book of papermaking, by Arnold E. Grummer
300 papermaking recipes, by Mary Reimer
The encyclopedia of papermaking & bookbinding, by Heidi Reimer-Epp
The ergonomics of hand papermaking, by Peter Thomas
Papermaking for the first time, by Rhonda Rainey

Wow! Imagine recipes for paper--three hundred of them. I had thought some of the instructions I had seen in Trash to treasure papermaking looked kind of like recipes, and now here are so many I probably won't ever use them all!  I'm also intrigued by The ergonomics of hand papermaking. I'm not sure how this will affect my papermaking, but I'd better find out before I hurt something by not doing it properly!

Now that I have all this great information from the libraries to draw from, I think I need to figure out what kind of paper to make first. I mean, there seem to be many kinds of papers to make, and I have seen some of them. Some are so beautiful, you'd want to hang them somewhere, like art. Then, there are the papers in which you would wrap a very special gift. But, I think I'd like to start with some paper I can write on, preferably in as light a color as I can make it if I can't actually get white...you just never know about that apocalypse and when it might be coming.

If you have ever wondered whether it would be a good idea to make some common everyday thing like paper, leave us a comment and let us know about it. As you can see, we kind of like to be prepared.

Until next time, stay crafty, apocalypse or not ~ Kaye & Malia

Learning | More Bad Ideas for Bookmarks

I had to laugh when Panteha blogged about the person who marked a page in a library book with dental floss. I shudder to think about how many germs there may have been on that thing. 

Bookmarking with a cat is highly impractical. Photo courtesy of QuinnDombrowski's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

I have worked in libraries for decades now, and I continue to be shocked at the things people use for bookmarks in library books. How do I know about this? People forget to take their bookmarks out of their books before returning them in the bookdrop. Sometimes we even find books on the library shelves with bookmarks still in them.

Panteha makes a good point. You should never put something that may have been in a person's mouth in a library book. Things like bandages and facial tissues are just as disgusting; don't use those, either. 


I would also like to discourage people from bookmarking with items that may be of value to them.

Over the years, I have either seen or heard of books marked with the following items:

• Checks or paycheck stubs
• Bills
• Letters
• Greeting cards
• Credit cards
• Identification or insurance cards
• Currency
• Income tax forms
• Personal photos
• Poems
• Art work
• Love notes
• Report cards
• Homework assignments
• Shopping lists
• Recipes 
• Straw wrappers
• Candy wrappers

We try our best to let the customer know if they dropped something of value in the bookdrop. But sometimes we are unable to be sure which book it fell from, and there isn't enough information on the item itself to help us know who to contact.

It's especially frustrating to find lovely wedding pictures or portraits of loved ones. I wish extra hard that the customer will remember that they used them as bookmarks, and ask the library if it is in the lost and found.

A few years ago, a photograph of a pig on a leash turned up in our bookdrop. This was clearly not a random pig. It may have been a pet or 4H project. In, other words, it was clearly "SOME PIG!" I couldn't bear to toss it in the trash after it languished on our Lost and Found shelf for three weeks, so I have kept it at my desk. I have nicknamed it Wilbur, after the pig in E. B. White's classic, Charlotte's Web. 

I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself in need of an impromptu bookmark. I often use library receipts, or those annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines. I have even used old envelopes or scratch paper for that purpose. Post-It notes are another great idea, because they don't fall out of the book easily, and can be moved from page to page without damaging the book.

What do you like to use as bookmarks, besides bookmarks?

Some people like to make their own bookmarks. Here are two books that give instructions for making them:

Step-by-Step Papermaking



Let's Knot: a Macramé Book