Arnold Grummer's Design Team Blog

Solid card stock sets off the handmade paper beautifully. By adding fistfuls of dried petals along with the pulp in the  blender,  you can get beautiful speckled paper. This kind of paper always makes me think of birds; the spotted breast of a thrush, the speckled eggs of a sparrow. For this sheet I used Arnold Grummer's Botanicals (Rosebuds and Angel Wings) . I made the sheet using a Medium Pour Mold  to conserve my botanicals. You can add the botanicals right along with the reclyed paper and blend, the petals are tough. they can stand some blending. . Both sides of this paper have a unique look, be sure to consider both sides when you are designing a card. Making the Cards To make the bird card, place the cut shapes onto the model to align, then attatch the overlapping parts-- I use a glue stick. Use the two different sides of one brown sheet of handmade paper for the wing piece and the back/tail peice. Attach the asse...

Handmade papermaking is so much fun!! And Arnold Grummer make is easy, too. When I started my paper factory one nice sunny morning, everyone got involved—my son Seth, daughter-in-law Joanna, and my two year old grand-daughter Chloe. Even my husband Steve, who generally shuns my projects couldn't resist. We made lots of paper—all from recycled junk mail. How cool is that to take something worthless and transform it into a beautiful handmade piece of paper. We tried lots of different types of inclusions, too. We even used torn pieces from a dictionary page as inclusions. Here are the pieces that I selected for this project. The plain one is for the inside cover of the booklet.  Here's a close-up of all those beautiful inclusions. I used the Arnold Grummer 3"x3" Book Cover Template to trace the outline on the reverse side of my cover sheet so I could cut it out. I cut the cover liner 3"x 6 3/4". I glued the book boards in place using USArtQuest...

I'm very excited to bring you my first blog post for the Arnold Grummer Design Team ! Today's post combines beautiful handmade paper with my love of bookbinding. The result is a rustic handbound leather wrapped journal filled with gorgeous handmade paper. The journal's leather cover is premium Italian Lambskin from Italy. I used the Arnold Grummer Papermill Complete Kit and Arnold Grummer's Summer Gold Botanicals along with a warm, creamy, medium weight scrap paper to make the handmade paper, and then bound the leather to the paper with waxed Irish linen thread. Let's take a look at the materials for this journal: 5 sheets of absolutely gorgeous 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" handmade paper Leather (can use leather from an old handbag, or jacket) Bone folder, popsicle stick, or fingernail Scissor/Rotary cutter Awl Waxed Irish linen thread Needle (with eye large enough for thread) Once you have your materials together take one sheet of paper, fold it in ha...