Repurposing items commonly discarded has been an affliction that has possessed me of late. Stacks of telephone books and buckets of dryer lint have sat patiently in my garage threatening to spontaneously ignite out of sheer boredom. I used a few pages from the phone books earlier this year, but nothing to cause even the slightest dent in my tower. And while dryer lint is a perfect kindling for my non-existent fireplace, my clothes are still producing it way quicker than I’m finding any practical use for it. That all stops here.
I drown shredded phone book pages in a water filled blender, set it to liquefy, and fire up the spinning blades. I then thinly spread the mulch on an old silk screen, press out the excess water, liquefy more paper for a day or so to let the sheet dry thoroughly. In the end, I carefully peel the sheet away from the screen to reveal a flat, dried, unified piece of shredded paper. I must say, it felt a bit like magic.
I immediately attempted the dryer lint with mixed results. No matter how well I blended the lint it was always clumpy and difficult to spread into a sheet. The end result was a sheet of odd, spongy, super soft cloth-like paper with gross hairs strung throughout.
Lastly, I took some white pages and coffee grinds from my french press and soak them overnight. I didn’t filter out the grinds when pouring my mixture, creating a bit of a binding problem in the end. However, it made the most interesting texture and smells amazing.
This entry is part of 2012’s Project 365 – A Creative Thing a Week.