Cooking Papers

It's 2:00 in the morning and I just finished an online class that was SO much fun!

Roben-Marie Smith taught the class: Easy Bake Artisan Papers.

I learned how to dye papers with avocados, eucalyptus, purple cabbage, red onions, tea, turmeric, etc.You need to have large aluminum pans for boiling each item individually.  As they are boiling, you add some salt (she uses Himalayan pink salt).  They you pour the water into a pan, dip your papers, and bake them in a low-oven for a couple of minutes.  The colors are surprising and the textures really cool!

Then, she taught us how to make botanical-infused papers--by making paper bundles of leaves and flowers and stems, tying the bundles with twine, and boiling the packets for about an hour and a half. When the packets are boiled, you separate the papers and remove the leaves--and voila!  you have papers with the imprints of the botanicals on them.  They are beautiful!  (Hers, not mine--as it is too late right now to start boiling my own.)

After learning these two techniques, with variations, we watched her make little mini books out of her papers.

The pages are crinkly and crunchy and textured--in various shades of purple, yellow, brown, and turquoise, as well as bright yellow if you use turmeric.  Using loose tea (especially herbal teas with lots of texture and color), you can also make pages that looks like handmade paper.

The papers of choice: Blu-Ray Construction Paper, Marker Paper, and just regular copy paper.  Once you've boiled and baked it, you'd never guess it started with such cheap paper.