Saturday, October 9, 2010

ask and you shall receive!!

So, in the back of my head along with all of the thoughts and projects and plans and dreams, I have always wanted to make paper. A few years ago - god, nearly a decade ago actually, I lived in London with my man and I bought him the most gorgeous lamp from Camden Market one christmas.

It was made with simple balsa wood but the lamp screens were made with handmade paper that was a very light shade of green, hardly noticeable to the naked eye. But when you turn it on, you see the blades of grass and the seeds - it is beautiful and I've always wanted to make my own.

A couple of years ago, I started to make one - having found some beautiful paper with rose petals in it. I got the frame put together... but haven't yet managed to fandangle the workings that would support the light bulb. That would have required power tools.. and that is definetly my man's domain.




So, now that I am off exploring all of my creative inclinations... I am back to the urge to make my own paper. And perhaps while I am here, I might finish this lamp and work out how to make more. My mind is ticking over as we speak.

The first step in making paper is to throw it in the blender to make a sloppy mulch. Something tells me that after doing that, the blender isnt going to clean up that easily. And paper pulp in my kids smoothies - something that probably wont go down very well from their perspective although it might add more fibre to their diet!! So, I needed a new blender.

If I were a garage sale guru like my good friend Monika (who's blog you just have to read!! http://www.mysweetprairie.blogspot.com/) then it would be no problem. I'm sure there must be millions of blenders out there for the picking. So that got me thinking... kijiji!! And there I found it. FREE. My new blender. It is missing the lid - but hey, I can do what the previous owners were doing - throw a tupperwear lid over the top.

Here it is - I guess it shall have to have a name. How about choppy -?? dunno - perhaps after I run it through it's paces and see what kind of personality it has!


So, yippeee - paper making here we come!!

2 comments:

  1. You bag! (putting in my blog addy like that) : ) That's it. I'm sharing this on facebook again. : ) You and choppy will be famous weather you like it or not! : ) hehe
    But seriously... that lamp is so lovely! How nice it will be to light it up on these dark evenings. I can't wait to see the paper you make! : ) What lovely things are you going to put in the muck?

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  2. making paper - I did that once. Just had no purpose for the paper. I'm such a packrat - I have lots of old screens here for drying the paper on.
    As for the lamp - how about searching value village or garage sales for old table lamps? I have one here, its basically a tripod with a bulb sticking straight up. It has a 70's white plastic bubble-shaped shade - it would be so easy to custom-make a wooden frame to go over it instead.

    anyhow, love both of your blogs, and hope to get inspired to do some neat stuff myself soon.

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