How To Make Handmade Paper

This guide is an introduction to how to make handmade paper, or, more accurately, how to recycle old junk paper into new paper to use in your love letters, Christmas cards, Valentines, or other artistic and crafty creations. I learned how to do this as part of a college printmakingcourse I took, but I think that it will be of interest to artists and crafters who work in a variety of media.
The firstthing to rememberis that your new paper will only be as good as the paper you start with. The better quality that you start with, the better you will end up with. In my experience it is not worth recycling old newspapers into handmade paper.
Examples of good papers to use:

Resume paper from outdated resumes.
Art papers that you messed up (old drawings that didnt work out, etc.)
Pages from old bookscan be good to use, depending on the book.
Old stationerycan be good too.
Scrapbooking papers that have begee too creased, crinkled or damaged to use in your scrapbook
It doesnt matter if these papers already have writing all over them. In fact, it is desirable to start with paper that has already been used and is no longer needed for its original purpose.
In some, but not all, cases you can recycle your junk mail into beautiful handmade paper. Take a good look at the paper before deciding to use it. Do not use glossy paper for this project. Old magazine pages, while they do work, dont usually give the best results. A paper that has coating on it is not desirable. If it looks like good quality uncoated paper then give it a try.
In addition to lots of papers to recycle, you will need:

A blender
A mold and deckle (usually these can be found on okay by searching "paper making kit")
Optional: Additional interesting bits to add to your paper such as glitter, seeds, dried flowers, confetti, small paper punchies, or little bits of thread (cut threads into tiny pieces- about a quarter of an inch long or less.) Be creative! You can probably think up many more interesting additions.
A Dishpan, Shallow Tub or similar item. It gees in handy to have more than one.
Pieces of Felt that are slightly larger than your mold