My Homemade Birthday Card!

Front

So we made paper in our History of Graphic Design class and our assignment was to post a blog about it!! I had transformed my amazing paper -or what actually turned out to be more of a card stock because of how thick it was- into a birthday card for my brother! I wanted it to be special because it was his 21st birthday. I wanted him to really take to heart, that even if he didn't like his birthday gift, I really spent "time" making him the perfect birthday card!

Inside Card

The process of making the paper was actually pretty simple. I've never done it before, but boy is it time consuming! We had to take pulp, which was made out of paper from a shredding machine and it was mixed with warm water. How simple does that sound?! We then took two different screens and basically sifted and strained the pulp out of this large container, bringing it to a cooking tray. Now this part is the most tedious-- we had to press the paper/pulp with a sponge to get out as much water as we could. It had to be flattened and dried. After peeling it off of the screen, we had to iron it, releasing even more steam and water from it. It took a few days to dry out, and being that mine was so thick, it took even longer! What an amazing process though. We were talking in class, while making the paper, how tedious and time consuming the work would be if we were living in A.D. 105 or in the era when paper was being formed and invented. It had to be perfect and made in a specific way. Now maybe it seemed easier when I did it because there really was no standard to how thick it was supposed to be. I think I would have failed with this, having to remake it, if I was living in that era!

Back

So the birthday card ending up turning into a Star War's cartoon, which he loved!!! I even made sure he knew that I made the paper, by writing it on the back of the card!! It turned out to be a great keepsake!