Flower Paper Guide
My Toy Wagon · Classroom Guide
Flower paper, start to finish.
The kit brings the frame and the dried flowers. The paper comes out of your recycling bin. In three short sessions a class turns junk mail and old worksheets into sheets worth writing a thank-you note on. Every step is below, including the ones a photograph cannot explain.
In the box
- Wooden frame with corner screws
- Dried flowers
- Reusable cloth
- Sponge
- Three envelopes
You supply
- Paper scraps: junk mail, old worksheets
- Water
- A blender you never cook with
- A wide plastic tub
- Towels, and a cookie cutter if you want shapes
Construction and watercolor paper make a heavier, sturdier sheet.
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Tear the paper small
Children rip scraps into pieces no bigger than a postage stamp, into a large bowl. Good first job for the youngest hands, and it takes about fifteen minutes with a group.
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Soak it
Cover with water and leave for 24 hours.
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Blend to a pulp
A few handfuls of soaked paper with plenty of water. Use the pulse setting. Add more water if it is too thick to move. Use an old or charity-shop blender. Paper pulp burns out motors, and this one should live with the art supplies, never the food.
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Pour into the tub and stir
Add more water. A thicker mix makes heavier paper, a thinner mix makes delicate sheets.
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Add the flowers
Stir in the dried flowers from the kit. Leaves, grass, yarn fibers, seeds and scraps of colored paper all work too.
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Pull a sheet
Slide the frame down to the bottom of the tub, scoop upward through the pulp, and lift it out level. Shake it gently side to side to even the fibers, then let the water drain. The gentle shake is what stops a sheet from coming out patchy.
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Press and turn out
Press the sheet with the sponge to push the water out, then flip the frame onto the cloth and lift it away.
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Dry for 24 to 48 hours
Somewhere flat and out of the way. A baking tray in a low oven speeds it up if you need the sheets sooner.
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Fold, trim, write
Three envelopes come in the box, so the first finished card has somewhere to go.
Over three days
| Day one | Tear and soak · 15 min |
| Day two | Blend, pull sheets, press · 40 min |
| Day three | Fold, decorate, write |
Boiling instead of soaking collapses days one and two into one session.
If it goes wrong
| Falls apart | Blend longer, or use more pulp and less water. |
| Too thick | More water in the tub. |
| Sticks to the frame | Let it dry a little longer before lifting. |
| Blender laboring | More water, and pulse rather than run it. |