Friday-10:30am

I had to show you the rough and raggedy Giant Panda brushes from Jerry's Artarama. See how large almost all of them are? They do not come to a point when wet--except for two of them, as I recall. Almost all of them have stray hairs going every which way still when they are wet and several of them seem to even have a hard time absorbing liquids. Click on the photo to enlarge and you can really see them better.

Here are the new brushes from Oriental Art Supply. All of these are nice and smooth when wet and come to points--no stray hairs--ahhh!! The ones with the rougher looking hairs are the firm brushes and actually stay firmer--hehe! Anyways, you can see why I will be playing happily and experimenting for a long, long time. :)

Okay--finished paper (not ironed--just book pressed). The first batch was made with some of the cotton linter and these flyers I have been collecting for the last 2 1/2 years. The office sticks them in a wall pocket down by the mailboxes on first floor. Whatever was left toward the end of the month--I took home. They just throw them away, anyways. They are good for making paper because they are colored all the way thru the paper--not just on the surface.

Here is what I ended up with the first day.

The next batch I used our white paper scraps we have been collecting--typing paper and white card stock left over from when we make cards and are trimming or from things I printed off and had part of a sheet of typing paper left over. [I just realized how I dated myself saying "typing" paper! Computer paper or printer paper. I guess I should say. Leah just chuckles at me when I call it that--hehe!] What we used to throw away is now being recycled! TaDa!! I combined the white paper and the Lama Li sketchbook pages I had tried watercoloring on and didn't like how it turned out--so--recyle.

This is how they turned out. Thick and soft and pale light green. Yummy looking! Like pale pistachio ice cream.

Here's the container of all the flower petals Leah collected from Baker Nursery when she worked there a few years ago. The next session I combined some of the dried petals and the white scrap paper in the blender.

This is how they turned out. I put more petals in the left one, obviously--hehe! I think I like it better with less petals. Sure doesn't take much when you beat them in!

Last session, I combined these leftover birthday napkins and some of that packing paper that gets smashed into boxes for mailing. Good thing to save and recycle, I thought?

The packing paper gives it a grey color. Not the greatest, but I might try to see what it does when I combine it with the flyer paper? Might not look so grey and blah then, eh? The more napkin fronts I put in the more confetti-like the paper became. I liked the way these turned out--quite festive!

A long slow process, eh? Only 16 sheets in the past week. I am going to try to make some more today. BUT--right now I am headed out to the porch to read!! Yes--it cooled off and the humidity dropped yesterday so I was able to open up the place since last night--all night! Ahhhh!! It is suppsed to get to the mid-80s today--and after that darn hot for days and days!! Predicting 90s again--so I am taking advantage of the beautiful day while I can. TTYL!!