At any given moment in our little shop, we have a very large amount of paper waste hanging around: paper scraps, items that got printed a little off, make- ready, color samples... Lots of paper. And yes, I have huge boxes strategically posted to catch the waste. At one point they started to over flow. Boxes busting out with thank you notes, coaters, calling cards, invitations.
Something had to be done! I knew that I wanted to recycle it all, but as an artist and printer I saw potential. That's money hanging out there after all. Everything that I print on has to be bought.
So...
I made paper. Okay, it's pink. But that happened by default. Our paper waste had lots of printed pink material, which in turn created pink paper. I wasn't going to bleach it, and it was more of an experiment after all... Plus, I am still working on the texture. My first batch was kinda thick and chunky. The thickness is great but the chunky prohibits the use of a pen or pencil on it...
So I had these huge sheets of paper hanging around and finally decided that I would make some new tags to adorn our products before we ship them out.
It just so happened that I had some pink to print- perfect timing for the little tags.
The tags ended up being 1" by 4"- perfect to punch a hole and attach. The recycled cotton paper printed marvelously on the press. It too a deep impression. I am assuming because I left the paper so chunky and didn't pack it too tight when I spread the pulp on the screen.
Some interesting tidbits: We use cotton paper- and cotton paper has long fibers
The cotton paper we buy has already come from recycled sources- they use left over fibers after ginning called linters.
No trees cut down, no extra cotton grown.
And now-it is being recycled again.
The type is vintage- rescued from a barn in Upstate New York- late 1800's early 1900's.
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