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!
The Process for Making Paper out of Recycled Denim
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
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!
I invite you to take a look at the handmade paper I sell in my shop. Check out my beautiful handmade paper art here!
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