Arnold Grummer's Design Team Blog

My four year old grand daughter was sad to see us take down our Christmas tree and all the ornaments. Even though she help take each ornament off the tree, often she would say, "I don't see why we can't leave the ornaments on the tree. They look so pretty!" So, we decided that we'd have a special Valentine's Tree with its own ornaments. This is an easy project—perfect for involving young children. Chloe had helped make the papers this fall (we followed these basis papermaking instructions ), and was eager to get to use them in a project. Together we selected the papers that we'd use for the ornaments—mostly pink, with the odd purple sheet of paper. We used a heart punch for the shapes. Each ornament requires a minimum of three hearts. For a fuller ornament, just add more hearts. Next, we scored each heart lengthwise in the center. We glued the left half of the first heart to the right half of the second heart. Then, we laid a piece of twine along the c...

In need of some luck?  Here's some being sent your way.  St. Patrick's Day is next month already.  Can you believe it?  This month, I am having fun creating and sharing some things in honor of the day.  This is the first thing I have to share.  I did quilling several years ago and enjoyed it, but after a while I stopped and packed everything away.  Recently, I have been seeing a lot of quilled pieces and dug out my tools.  As I was planning my projects to share with all of you, I thought it would be fun to do a quilled piece from hand made paper so decided to give it a try and now I'm hooked.  You should try it.  I know you'd love doing it, too! I began by using one of the Papermill Kits and creating 3 sheets of paper according to the directions that come with the kit.  The first sheet I created was turned into the base of my card.  As I made the sheet of paper, I added some Gold Dust Metallics to the paper because ever...

Hi! Today I would like to tell you about my first project/post as a brand new design team member. List of supplies used today are: Woven Hearts Terracotta craft mold PaperMill Complete Kit   Microfleur Flower Press Corrugated cardboard Embossing folder/machine Ornate Die Hemp Cord White Gesso First,I prepared my flowers and leaves in the microfleur flower press quick and easy. I placed my flowers and leaves into the press and microwaved them.. I was amazed how easy it was to make paper with the Arnold Grummer Paper Making kit. I followed the simple directions of making pulp in the blender and pouring into the casting mold. Just before I lifted out the paper I set in some leaves, fuzzy stuff off the trees from my morning walk and whalla! Awesome textured, colored paper. I cut the paper with a Tim Holtz Ornate Die Shape and adhered it to my corrugated cardboard that I painted with white gesso. I ran this through my embossing machine with an embossing fo...

For this weeks project for the Arnold Grummer Blog, I decided to pull out my paper casting supplies.  With the weather outside being extremely cold and snowy, my eye turned to the flower molds to take my mind off the weather outside. Making paper castings are fun and easy with the use of Arnold Grummer's Cotton Linter Casting Squares.  I used five or six of linter squares for the castings that I made. I made three castings from the two flower molds I chose to use. The look of the castings can be slightly altered by how you finish the outer edge. For one casting, I carefully pulled the outer edge with the tip of a toothpick to feather the edges after removing the casting from the mold before drying it completely.  Another was left to dry without touching the edges.  The third trimmed by cutting once it was completely dried.  To dry the castings, I placed them on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  I placed them in the oven that was heated to 2...

Hi all Debbie Buckland here again… Did you know that the Chinese new year in 2014 is the Year of the Horse? I love the Chinese ink paintings - very fascinated with them and i have an old love to original concept of Artist Trading Cards (ATC) - which were paintings now they have evolved into other forms of art like collage and mini scrapbook pages. They are art on a 2.5 x 3.5" pieces of card. The perfect envelope that these can be posted in is in the #375 Medium Template collection pack : This is also sold separately as   #354 invitation and thank you card When I was making my sheets of paper I used the template in the frame so when the paper was made it was instantly that shape - no cutting or measurements needed! I also cut my ATC card from some thick card I recycled from a cereal box. The easy fold guide was used with a bone folder to get crisp folds once the paper was dry and I started decorating… The pocket had to be made first of course… That i...

It is getting close to Valentine's Day!  Soon you will be sending a card, gift or both to loved ones.  Make an old fashioned Valentine with your own handmade papers to make it very special. For the Valentines here I used the Arnold Grummer's Heart Template and the Envelope Template from the Cards and Tags Template Collection . I stared with scraps of colored paper, if you are like me you have tons of scraps of paper.  For this project I used papers that were solid (nothing with a white core).   Be sure to follow the directions in your kit or Basic Paper Making video ! Using the Papermill Complete Kit you can see the template for the heart card in the water ready for the pulp to be poured in.    I also cast some flowers and birds in silicone molds I have. Check out what you might have around the house that you could use to cast your paper pulp in. Use the Arnold Grummer's Strainer to drain water.  The strainer is made to sit ...

Share the love with someone special this February by creating this Hearts of Gold gift tag to include with that special little surprise gift or tie it around his or her favorite glass to bring a smile to the one you love.  The tag was created by making paper pulp according to the basic instructions .  The color was achieved by adding some leftover red tissue paper that I had from our Christmas gifts.  I just kept adding it until I reached the color I wanted.  Some of the pieces didn't mix completely in and created red dots throughout the paper which added a nice look to the paper.  The tag was made by pouring the pulp into the tag template and finished according to the instructions for making a piece of paper.  A few weeks ago, I had made some extra sheets of paper using my Papermill Kit so I dug into my stash for a sheet to punch the hearts from.  This was a sheet of tea dyed paper that I had added some gold dust to when I created the sheet of ...