Handmade Paper Making Supplies You Need!

Handmade paper making supplies can be found all over the place. Making handmade paper is an inexpensive hobby. I want to show you where you can get your handmade paper making supplies so you can make your own paper. Keep reading to learn about the handmade paper making supplies you need to get started. 



Handmade Paper Making Supplies -Retailers 

Here are the places I like to get my paper making supplies from: 

  • PaperTrail in New Dundee, ON 

  • Carriage House Paper in New York

  • Thrift stores 

  • Amazon

Handmade Paper Making Supplies

You can check out the above retailers for where to buy the following paper making supplies:

  • Water/hose and sprayer

  • A plastic apron- there’s lot’s of water involved

  • A large vat 

  • A plastic folding table 

  • Rubber boots - your feet will get wet

  • Strainer

  • Measuring cups

  • Food scale 

  • A place to dry your paper like an old screen window or hanging on a clothesline

  • Mould and deckles - varying sizes 

  • Pulp - I like using cotton or abaca in sheets 

  • Wool felts

  • A large 5 gallon bucket 

  • Squeegee for easy clean up

  • Jiffy mixer with drill to attach it to

  • You can also use a blender and some scrap paper if you are looking for a more DIY look to paper making or you are just starting out. 



Extra Handmade Paper Making Supplies 

  • Hollander beater 

  • Other forms of pulp

  • Pigments 

  • Rubber gloves 

  • Books about paper making or a beginner paper making course

  • Additives like formation aid


Check out my other paper making blog posts:

How to Make Handmade Paper with Plants 

How to Make Handmade Paper with Denim



Click the button below to check out my handmade paper art shop! 

handmade paper making supplies
map paper art21.jpg
Map Paper - Round or Rectangle
from CA$28.00




Canada Artist Grant 



I received a Canada artist grant with th Ontario Arts Council last year and worked on a project that Canada artist grant. I was awarded a grant of $2000 for emerging artists to learn a new skill or for professional development including the purchase of new art supplies. You can learn more about this Canada artist grant in this post!



Canada artist grant/OAC artist grant proposal

For my Canada artist grant I chose to focus on papermaking in my application. I proposed learning how to make paper out of plants and learning how to use the letterpress machine. I wanted to letterpress some of my Patched poems on handmade pieces of map paper I made. I also proposed to purchase some mould and deckles to help me with papermaking some abaca and cotton pulp, a vat and other paper making supplies. 


Canada artist grant/OAC artist grant 

I chose to work with a local paper making company the Papertrail to be able to learn about paper making easier. The Papertrail is based out of New Dundee, Ontario. That’s also where I attended workshops, completed my letterpress poetry project and ordered my papermaking supplies. 


I attended 5 paper making workshops in total with the grant money. A basic beginner paper making workshop, two workshops on making paper with plants and two on using the letterpress. 

Canada artist grant


About the Paper making Workshops 


The Beginner Papermaking Workshop 

This workshop took place in August of 2022 and in this workshop I learned basic skills and refined my paper making skills. We also learned how to use pigments in paper and got to experiment with the sheets of paper we made. 



Letterpress Workshop #1 

I did this workshop in November, during this workshop I learned how to use the letterpress and the history of the letterpress. I also did some test prints of some text with the letterpress. 

canada artist grant with paper making


Paper Making with Plants Workshop

This workshop was a two day back to back workshop in December. In these workshops I learned how to make paper from plants. I made paper from the stems and pods of milkweed as well as from flax. I got to use their hollander beater and beat the pulp by hand. 



Letterpress Workshop #2 

This workshop happened in December. I got to complete my Patched poem project and letterpress 5 different poems I wrote onto handmade map paper. 


All of these workshops were full day workshops. I am grateful for the Canada artist grant with OAC and being able to develop my paper making skills as an artist as well as being able to complete a project and purchase new paper making supplies.  


You can purchase my book Patched that has more poems here!


Related Articles:

How to make paper out of denim

Microgrant with cyanotypes

OAC grants

Patched Book



Clouds Installation

Clouds is an installation of 150 found  doilies by Jackie Partridge that have been embedded with poured abaca pulp. This installation was created in 2016 while I was studying my Master of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal.

I experimented with this installation by testing out different lighting and playing with different perspectives and camera angles when documenting this installation. This installation took over 4 hours to complete. 

Next time I would present this work I would create pillows on the floor to invite viewers to lay down and look up at the clouds. 

I created this work with found doilies and I poured on abace pulp. I placed the doilies in the paper press to squeeze out the extra water. Then I let them dry flat for 24 hours. I hung the doilies with different lengths of thread attached to rods on the ceiling. I would love to continue to create thousands of these and hang them in a larger venue. 

Doilies are a symbol of history and domesticity. I see them as floating ghosts of all the grandmothers I grew up with when I was younger. When I was born I had 8 grandmothers including great-grandmothers and great-great grandmothers. Each doily is special and unique. Some are colourful and others are plain. Some are intricate and detailed and some are simple and plain.


The floating doilies were hung with thread cut at various lengths to look like floating clouds in the sky.



These are made with vintage doilies collected from thrift stores, garage sales and my grandmothers.



There are still pieces available from this installation in my art shop - you can check them out here! 


These vintage crochet doilies look beautiful framed in a white or wooden frame! 

Daffodil
Daffodil
CA$90.00
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Check out my shop to purchase any doilies!

To see my current artwork- click here!

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Paper Making with Recycled Blue Jeans

Paper making with recycled blue jeans is a time consuming process but it also a rewarding process. I love being sustainable in my art practice and using recycled blue jeans to make paper is exciting! I will show you how to make paper with recycled blue jeans in this post! I started paper making in 2015, where I was working as a teaching assistant in a paper making class during my MFA. See some behind the scenes about the process of paper making below!

How to Make Paper Out of Recycled Blue Jeans -What You Need

  • a hollander beater

  • water

  • a vat (plastic tub that is shallow)

  • mould and deckle

  • felts

  • sponge

  • jeans that are 100% cotton (they must be 100%)

  • Check out this article for other paper making supplies you need!

How to make paper out of jeans, denim pulp by Jackie Partridge

The Process for Making Paper out of Recycled Denim

Denim Doily -Medium
Denim Doily -Medium
CA$90.00
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You can make paper with found denim as long as the fibres are 100% cotton. In order to make paper out of fabric the fibres need to be natural and not include synthetic fibres. Now a days it can be hard to find blue jeans like that!

Above is an image from the paper making process —> turning denim —> tiny strands of thread —> to pulp —> to paper


Steps for Paper Making with Recycled Blue Jeans:

In order to make the denim paper the blue jeans must be collected rinsed with water (this removes the laundry detergent so the pulp isn’t foamy) and cut into tiny 1cmx 1cm squares. I sort my denim by shade of blue jeans this will get you different blues in your paper. You will have to rinse the jeans in the washing machine with no detergent for a couple cycles to remove any soap residue. If you don’t properly wash the denim you will get lots of foam and bubbles when you run them through the hollander beater. After the squares are cut they are put into a beater that grinds the natural fibres into tiny blue threads.

After the pulp is beaten down to tiny threads (taking around 4 hours or longer). The longer you beat the denim pulp the less threads appear in the paper. The pulp is added into a vat of water and a mould and deckle are used to create sheets of paper. You will scoop the recycled blue jean denim pulp with a mould and deckle in the vat of water and pull a sheet. Then remove the top mould and press the screen on sheets of felt squeezing out excess water. You can also press down with a dry sponge. Layer a felt of the wet sheets of paper. Then place the stack of felts and blue jean paper in a press to squeeze out extra water. Remove sheets of paper and dry them by hanging or in a flat dryer. It will take over 24 hours to dry.

A handful of denim pulp

A handful of denim pulp

Here is abaca paper mixed with denim pulp in a mould and deckle (this forms the shape of the paper)

Here is abaca paper mixed with denim pulp in a mould and deckle (this forms the shape of the paper)

Leftover pulp dries and water can be added to make it pulp again!

Leftover pulp dries and water can be added to make it pulp again!

Denim Paper-Light and Dark Blue
Denim Paper-Light and Dark Blue
CA$28.00
Shade of Blue:
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Marbled Denim Paper
Marbled Denim Paper
CA$28.00