homemade paper: part of our Mother's Day surprise

A couple of weeks ago and wonderful and arty mom offered to make paper with the kidlets.

She is the kind of mom who is wonderful with the children, is generous in sharing her creative passions, who comes with all the "stuff" that she needs, and the children enjoy working with her.

It took me a whole nanosecond to say yes.

The first step was ripping paper and letting it soak and soften. We used paper from our recycle bin.

After the paper softened, our arty mom used an immersion blender to make "paper soup". The kids loved putting their hands into the soup. "It's so soft". "How can paper feel so soft." "You need to put your hand in here. Feel this." It did feel pretty cool.

They dipped a screen into the soup.

And pulled it out filled with paper soup. They jiggled the screen so that excess water drained out the bottom, and put a sponge on the top to absorb more water.

When the paper was dry enough, it was ready to separate from the screen,

and dry on newspaper in the hallway.

We decided that our paper was too special to just put in backpacks to take home. We had to do something with it. It needed to be value added paper.

I was thinking wall hanging. An artistic colleague suggested that we highlight a small something special drawing on a black square. Bingo.

The kids drew something that was important to their mamas. We had a number of hearts, some flowers, a horse, and a few self portraits (they are important to their mamas).

The kidlets (and their teacher) are pretty pleased with their wall hangings. We think the mamas will be delighted with this part of their Mother's Day surprise.