Arnold Grummer's Design Team Blog

Sharing food and drink is one of the oldest rituals in the world and what better way to celebrate my 60th birthday  than to share a cup of tea with my besties?  I set about making some place cards for my birthday tea celebration over at Southern Cup of Tea   out of the left over Botanical paper I had on hand which I had created with my  Arnold Grummer  Papermaking kit and the Angel Wings: Multi Color Mix . Using my Tea bag stencil template, I traced and cut them out. Tip: Be prepared for beautiful albeit annoying flaws when writing on botanical paper. For numbers 1 and 2 the fix is simple. You just need to cut out extra "tags" to glue on. 1. This beautiful kaleidoscope of flowers would just overwhelm the text. 2. Sometimes a deckled edge just doesn't work, even as much as I love them and in this case it ends up  looking like an corner that got torn off. 3. No going back from this one really when a dark piece lands s...

Do you like to read about other handmade paper artisans? Recently I read an article from the Monte Crisco Magazine on Master Papermaker Francesco Proietti and one line really caught my attention. "Finally, a rounded stone “polishes” the paper until it is flat and smooth." Now I'm all about learning things the old fashioned way albeit I might not prefer to do it all the time, I do like my modern ways too, just saying. However I enjoy a respite from the modern world every now and then and this technique just called to me to try. So I got out from my stash a sheet of one of my "perfectly imperfect" hand made papers that I created using the medium Dip Handmold . I wanted a rough sheet of paper to see if this would actually work. I planned on doing a bit of stamping on it so I drew out a grid that I intended to polish. I'm glad I chose a small space because it is a little labor intensive although not difficult. By rubbing the stone over the pap...

Happy New Year 2019! When I think of bringing in the New Year I think of party hats, streamers and of course confetti which inspired my confetti stationery.  They are perfect for writing a letter to anyone celebrating a happy occasion or just for celebrating your friendship with them. Using a hole punch I created some confetti from random scraps of handmade paper that were lying around in my stash which is my inspiration for this project.  I love it when I am inspired by scraps; nothing goes to waste! For my photo tutorial, I am using the  Arnold Grummer  Large Envelope template  along with the  Pour Handmold .  The first step is creating your pulp and pouring it into the mold that holds the template. Once I pulled the mold out of the water and removed the deckle I set it on a dedicated for papermaking baking tray so that the excess water that drains off the wet sheet will not make a mess and run over t...

It’s that time of the year when people’s attention is focused on the holiday ritual of gift-giving.  I actually started making my Botanical Sticky Note Books back in July, mainly because my paper making studio  aka my garage is not heated, so all my paper making is done during the summer.  And if you want a great gift to give to someone or even to gift yourself then purchase an  Arnold Grummer  Papermaking kit . I used Arnold Grummer's  Angel Wings: Multi Color Mix  to create my botanical paper for my  Sticky Note books.   I love the bright colors which won't fade and the fact that the Angel Wings tear into long thin strips and will give a mulberry type paper effect. I love the different effects you can achieve by varying the amount of botanicals that you add for each batch of sheets in the blender.  If this was to be used as stationery then I would have used less and blended more but I kn...

I love to make stationery and I have been trying out some different designs lately, like making fluid borders the Arnold Grummer way! His paper making kits are the bomb and they will get you making your own paper quickly and easily. The first thing we all do is when we are making handmade paper is to decide what color paper we are going to recycle. There is the choosing of scraps we collected to tear into tiny stamp size pieces and then when we are making a border, we need two colors! The joy of designing your own paper is all about style! AND if you add some Gold Dust then you are adding pizazz to your paper! For this project, I made 2 different sets of stationary with matching envelopes but it's the same steps for both colors. First thing I did was to use my pour mold to create the base of the paper and then while the paper is still sitting in your vat of water you will want to squirt in your colored pulp along the side of the deckle. This ensures a fluid look...