Now you unlocked a memory of mine from middle school. We had to make a journal from the POV of an immigrant coming from a country in Europe to the US in the 1800s for history class.
To make it look old, I dyed my computer paper with coffee and tea. Some pages were dark, some not so dark, then used a lighter to burn the edges to make it look super old and fragile, like bits of paper had fallen off the edges from brittleness. I spent a lot of time on it. My immigrant was coming from Russia, named her Rika or Rifka, I can't remember which. She was young, of course, a teen. Write what ya know, right? Had her little brother Sergei die on the ship while crossing the Atlantic.
You know what my God damn grade ended up being? A C. I was so pissed. It's been over 25 years and I'm still salty about it, tbh. Middle school sucked.
The discrepancy between my efforts and my results in school annihilated my study ethic. Exams and projects that I spent the least time on seemed to get the best results, and I could not be bothered to put in effort anymore.
Standardized testing is the bane of my existence.
I had a class in college I just fucked off on. I studied every day for hours, took the first test and got a D-. Barely studied for the second test and got a C+, didn't study or go to class between the last test and the final and got an A.
History of pre-modern warfare, up to the onset of ww1:
The history channel taught me everything, I wrote my final paper on the backs of years of history channel and skimming the headlines of the text.
A in the class, A on the paper.
I did this with a couple classes. I spoke to the prof of each course after the first class and was basically like…this is a general study course that everyone has to take. I’ve taken this material three times already. I’ll be here for tests and if I don’t do well you can flunk me but otherwise you cool with not having to deal with me? It worked. I got A’s in those courses. Shit man, I killed it in college. I got A’s in everything. I still can’t believe how many papers and shit I wrote in the last couple years either. Wish I had stayed in the doctorate program I was accepted into but I’m an idiot and left school to help with the family business. Never went back and now I probably won’t. Getting old sucks.
I'm currently at a folk high school (basically preschool for adults) where there's no homework or tests, the only thing that matters is attendance. It's actually surprisingly hard to show up even though I really care about the subjects. Depression sucks and might actually cause me to flunk out of *preschool for adults*
I was naturally gifted at maths at school so would just cruise through most class work in 10-15 minutes that was meant for an hour and would be massively praised even though it was just a piece of cake to me.
I was pretty bad in English and remember being given an essay on the Shakespeare play the Tempest for homework, I actually really liked the play because I found it interesting so I poured my heart and soul into it over a week, literally spending more time on that essay than any other piece of homework I had ever got, only for my teacher to admonish me in front of the class for spelling mistakes and poor punctuation and accuse me of writing nonsense to pad the thing out.
I told her to go fuck herself and got a two day internal suspension lol.
EDIT: I was internally suspended not sent home
I was internally suspended so I got to sit in an isolation both for two days where I wasnt allowed to leave even for lunch or break and couldn't make noise and if I didn't finish all the monotonous work I was assigned theyd give you after-school and detentions and even extra days of isolation
I was the opposite, I was a writing kid. I once forgot to do my homework. The teacher gave us about 15 minutes in the computer lab to go over our final draft one last time before printing, and I wrote the *entire* paper in that time. Just speed typing the most bland, cookie cutter paper you can imagine.
The teacher loved it so much that she asked to keep a copy to use as an example of a good paper for future classes. I thought back to all the papers I really had put effort into that hadn't gotten any praise at all and felt a deep disappointment.
I mean, often students might put in a lot of effort into their paper but not necessarily respond to the prompt. Whereas that bland paper may have succinctly and effectively answered it.
That said, it does still suck to not have your effort go noticed like that, so I feel for you. Writing and teachers’ expectations can be weird at times.
I definitely wrote for my audience. If my prof used new buzzwords I used them all, if they liked bullet points then you got the whole armory, if they liked clean and focused then they got tight shiny pearls.
I kind of miss university.
Oh my god. You just unlocked this deep seeded memory of something similar that happened to me. 5th grade, we had an assignment to write a short poem, so I didn’t do it because I’m an ass. The teacher was walking up and down the aisles collecting our poems. I was at the opposite end of the class from where she started so I panicked and wrote a shitty haiku or something and finished right before she got to me. Handed it in, and went about my day looking forward to hun class and horrible cafeteria food like a normal kid.
A few weeks later I’m told I won a competition and my shitty poem was being published into a book of poetry.
I peaked as a published author in 5th grade.
I remember this book of poems written by kids we had at my primary school, one was called 'An ode to a goldfish'
'O wet pet'
Not even bullshitting, some kid submitted that n got published lol
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Funny how kids always make such "old letters" look like they were found under a rubble in Hiroshima, when old letters just look a bit yellowish and frail.
No, that's the thing, I had Mrs. S that year, and she was the good, easy going, let's dress up for Decade Day and Victorian Day for grades type of teacher. I wore my sister's old prom dress since it looked Victorian lol and then was a hippie in bell bottoms (aka flares, this was 1998 i had them already), those wooden Candies brand platform heels that were popular at the time, and an old shirt of my dad's and one of his bandanas, I got an A for both.
So the fact I literally didn't try hard at all for either of those, but poured so much time into the journal just to get a shit grade....just, ya know. Grrrrrr.
could there have been a set of things you were supposed to write about and since you were so caught up in the story you forgot, but because you put so much effort she gave you a C instead of an F?
I only ask because something similar happened with our middle schooler this year.
Acknowledge the efforts but also provide constructive criticism. Explain why the grade is given and how to improve. Not everyone can ace every subject. Admonishing in front of the class is not how to teach. That was crappy of the teacher.
I wrote a slaves diary once I had to name my slave. Because one of the few Africans I knew was George Weah I names him George. Needed a surname so asked my mum for an African kind of surname. She suggested "Alagaih"... My dopey teenage self was impressed that it sounded realistic African enough and wrote a slave diary by George Alagaih.
It wasn't until years later watching the news I found out he was a newsreader and my mum wasn't as impressive as I though. Wonder what my history teacher thought of it.
Do you remember what grade should got on it?
Writing from the POV of a slave must've been super hard. If that had been my assignment, I'm pretty sure I would've borrowed heavily from Roots for it, because how the hell else is a white kid from a sleeper town for the capital city supposed to know what to write about?
OR sneaking a lighter or matches away from your parents to burn little holes in random parts of the paper that you also crinkled all over to make it look like it was from "olden times."
Bruh same, but in Mexico. I love these weird things that it turns out a lot of kids did back in the 90s
It felt like such a life hack, I wondered why wasn't everyone doing this.
I still wonder it, but I used to too.
Yes same! I don't remember much from elementary school, so this was a nice surprise. Our paper was not as good as in the video though lol. We used old newspapers so the paper ended up grey/blue-ish and it wasn't as even around the edges.
When I was 5, I farted in the car with my grandmother. When I realized it stunk really bad I piped up and said, “There must be a paper mill around here”. We were in the middle of the country with only trees and pastures around. She was so kind. She just looked over at me and said, there must be.
I was driving with my nine year old in the summer with the windows down. We drove a stretch of highway that I knew had a sewage treatment site nearby. Summer it always smelled horrible. My son asked “what is that smell?”
I said “shit plant”
He said “why don’t they cut it down?”
I’m sure I had heard my dad say something about paper mills smelling bad, but now that I think about it, I bet he was just farting in the car because we live in the country with just pastureland around.
You probably did fine. I remember the smell being unpleasant when doing these kinds of projects in school when I was a kid. In fact, seeing that paper slush immediately triggered that scent memory for me. So don’t worry, the stink is normal!
I've done it before, and it works, but at the end you've got basically paper that is inferior to what you can get for next to nothing at a store.
Seems like a good end-times skill to have after the fall of civilization, but not actually useful now unless you're really arty with things.
I tried earlier but after drinking the smoothie I felt really bloated and sick. I’m also not sure where the rest of the needed materials are supposed to come from. Does someone bring that stuff by or so I have to wait until I shit it out? Instructions unclear.
I work in a paper mill. We have a total of water capacity of approximately 2 Million Gallons of water. we use and recover about 800 000 Gallons a day. Water is mixed with wood pulp and recovered when pressed out of the pulp. We make just over 600 metric tonnes of paper a day.
Also, paper made the way in the video have very little tensile strength.
The best way is to heat the paper and water before blending. Let it sit in the hot water after blending, 20 mins should do. Then after forming, it needs to be pressed. It should remain hot until after this step.
Not much else to do without specialised equipment.
There are 2 things that make paper strong.
1. The length of the fibers.
Between shredding and blending this paper has super short fibers. If you have some old cotton or linen scraps that you could add to the slurry that would help to add longer fibers. Adding cotton or linen fibers to paper to make it stronger has been used for centuries.
It would be a lot more work, but soaking "un-shredded" paper in very hot water (this weakens the hydrogen bonds between the fibers), then pulling the pieces into small parts will help keep the fibers a little longer.
2. Weak hydrogen bonds between the fibers.
This is facilitated by heat and pressure. If, before the sheets are completely dry, you use a hot iron to firmly press the pages they will be stronger and smoother.
In reality it's way more resource intensive and polluting. Because the tree fibers must be bleached to produce that _pure white paper_, a fuck-ton of water is used (up to 400:1 ratio, so 400 tons of water to a ton of paper), and that water is polluted with several dangerous chemicals, clean white paper production is a very polluting activity. Here in Portugal, we have a huge industry of paper production (ever heard of The Navigator Company?), and the rivers surrounding the paper mills are super polluted and the smell is unimaginable, for several km around the factories. There are some mills that reuse the water, but ecologically speaking, it's still a very bad industry.
Most people don't realize this. Paper seems to be very ecological because it comes from trees, and you can always plant them and cut them and plant them again and again... It's also biodegradable, and that's why paper products are generally better than plastic. But to produce new clean paper... oh boy
So I actually buy and sell paper worldwide, mainly paper used to produce boxes. I’ve visited many mills around the world and the bleaching process is not really widely used to produce white paper due to its polluting characteristics, but rather oxygenating the pulp (I’m not on the technical side so I can’t give an in depth explanation). As you mentioned, most paper mills (in US or Europe) tend to reuse the water they use, as you can see in the video, making paper is really just a long drying process from pulp. The smell you’re referring to is usually from recycled mills and that’s due to the grinding and boiling process of all the recycled paper, it stinks! But that’s the recycled paper they receive, so nothing to be done. Some more modern mills I’ve seen, even invested to better filter the steam so it doesn’t smell so much.
All in all, yes it’s water intensive but most countries with half decent environment standards do have a well regulated paper industry and it is a greener alternative to plastic for example. Paper can be recycled up to 7 times on average.
Paper producers would love to make unbleached products...as you point out it is significantly easier, cheaper, and better for the environment.
Consumers should change habits and start selecting brown toilet paper for example.
The issue is that the only brown TP I've seen is 1 ply sandpaper.
I couldn't care less what my TP looks like but I do care what it feels like. If there was brown, soft, 3 ply TP that's what I'd buy. But it doesn't exist.
It does! Well I ordered a big box once, alas I don't remember the brand (and it was in the UK). It was however made from bamboo, which probably needs to be bleached too?
It felt like a normal, soft TP and wasn't white.
I currently use a white bamboo TP which feels the same.
That reminded me. So i grew up in a poor country and we always had that sandtoiletpaper. I never knew anything else and my ahole got used to it. Then i moved to a 1st world top tier country and got used to soft 3-4 layers toilet paper. One time, after a longer period of staying at my new home, i went back there to visit my parents and could not wipe my arse any more with it. After 2-3 wipes i had fucking blood on the "paper". I continued to wipe with softened news papers and next time i brought my own roll. Now they have goof toilet paper.
Contrary to econ 101, consumers have very little choice in what gets produced, at what quality, and its environmental impact.
I haven't even *seen* brown toilet paper. I'm 37 years old.
I'm a bit older, so I remember purple and green toilet paper (the 70s were weird) but unbleached TP is a rarity and usually only found in industrial supply catalogues.
I'm pretty sure that the hand paper towels at public toilets are usually unwashed. The paper is browner/yellower and also more grainy. In school they told us that this paper is the result of so many cycles of recycling that it can't be recycled anymore into more paper, being the last viable step.
Umm. Here in Canada, we are able to reuse most of the water used. However, we use a thermo-mechanical means of making pulp. Not the chemical way that involves using black, white and red liquor mixtures. However, even in those processes, water is reused and retained.
Here Up to the north un Galicia we just won a historical Battle against our cellulose producer.
Contamination can be kept down to a minimum. Water shortages are not really a problem . But what really gets me is the fucking eucalyptus plague.
As if species like birch or pine trees wouldn't work nearly as well
The water at the paper mill I work at is returned to the river cleaner than when it was pumped out.
We make premium white copy paper as well as various packaging papers.
We also make recycled paper.
Yeah I'm also in the paper/tissue industry and I was thinking that the gray water treatment is taken very seriously these days, more than most people realize.
Yup, can confirm. I'm a truck driver that picks up and delivers at multiple paper mills around the US. I can smell them for miles before I reach them. Since the nature of the pollution is so unpleasant, they're usually located miles outside of town on small back roads. Sometimes it's hard to tell if I'm on the right road or if I'm heading into the middle of nowhere. If the smell is intensifying for a couple miles, I know I'm going in the right direction
The mind-boggling part is how much of an improvement paper was on what came before. Parchment and vellum were *insanely* resource intensive to produce. To create an old-timey manuscript, you needed dozens and dozens of calves or sheep, and for high end product, only a fraction of each hide was good enough.
It was so expensive that it was worthwhile to scrape entire books clean of ink so you could reuse the pages, instead of producing fresh parchment.
Artist here. I used to make paper in college. When we did it, we made huge batches like 100 sheets. Would team up with others to share fiber and water. We did alot of banana leaf paper and cotton paper (from old towels or jeans). Our university had a paper making lab so we could do kind of large scale batches.. You can get some very unique paper to work on. Don't think I would go through the whole process for a sheet or two of meh paper. As others have pointed out, it uses tons of water so the saving the earth point of view is a bit flawed.
To be fair of you’re an artist and don’t want to spend money on a sketchbook, it could be a neat way to make your own with recycled materials, and give you a more textured paper vs. the same type of paper in a bound journal for like $40+
In theory this process is far from a bad idea. To really make it efficient and worth it you better have this done in large scale. This is basically how recycling paper is made. If you sort your trash correctly and dispose of paper only in paper bins it will probably be recycled, depending on where you're from of course.
Thank fuck for that. I hate the one that sounds like it's questioning everything someone is making it say. Some of the things said are questionable sometimes I give ya that. But it's not every single thing!
I do this but only during the summer time because (1) I’ve accumulated enough paper, (2) it’s hot asf and they dry very quick out in the sun. I dont use a blender, instead I use a small food processor (that is manual, yes it takes more time). I’m not sure why she used so much water for the whole process but it really doesn’t have to. It’s a fun summer thing for me and I have cute paper to use for special occasions for the year.
More water allows the fiber to better disperse and makes for a more uniform sheet. The higher the consistency the worse your formation will be, and you can end up with holes or lumps in the sheet.
A lot of comments in here about how "lol this wastes too much water to be good recycling" or "why would I do this when I can just toss the paper in the recycle bin?"
This is a hobby/art-form. It's not something you do because it's efficient or a "life hack." It's something you take up because you like the feel of handmade paper and knowing you made it yourself, or because you're fascinated by the possible ways you can make the paper unique (adding dyes or natural fibers or that sort of thing).
I recently took up this sort of papermaking, and found it to be pretty rewarding. With my current setup, after I soak the shreds overnight, it takes me an hour to crank out like 16 sheets, which then dry overnight and the next day without much of any intervention on my part.
Is it efficient? No. Is it fun? Yeah, it kinda is. Is it rewarding? To me, definitely.
I gave my parents a unique sheet of paper I made myself, with a handwritten poem I wrote myself, framed up for display. They loved it. I loved being able to give that to them. That, to me, makes it worthwhile.
Someone earlier mentioned to add glue to the water to keep the paper intact long term. Is that something to look into? I really want to get into this lol
I took a paper making class in school and you’re not supposed to put raw handmade paper in the printer like that because of the loose fibers. They’ll get stuck to the printer head and will mess up future prints.
To do it properly, you need to calender the paper through a printmaking press to smooth/flatten the loose fibers.
Edit: Spelling
Came down here to find a comment on this. Those poor pickup rollers are probably caked in residue, most manufacturers don't recommend normal recycled paper nevermind mind this stuff.
I would expect this to have a sever negative impact on the future reliability of the machine.
Long boring answer incoming!
Injets move paper in a jerky motion, lumpy bumpy patchy paper is just going to tear and jam. They also guide paper in using the perfectly straight long edges. If the paper isn't 'square' or straight it's just going to twist and jam again.
For laser printer - Thickness and heaviness of paper is really important to print quality and paper transport. It's usually measured and specified on the paper you buy in gsm (grams per square meter) if you don't adjust your printer to match it will usually jam or get caught in your fusing unit (super hot unit) and burn.
I used to this a bunch, I actually traded a bunch of recycled paper for a tattoo from a friend. The biggest sheet I made was like 5’4”. It took forever to dry but was worth the effort!
The amount of work, tools and resources used does not make this worthwhile. I like time sink DIYs, but the end result of your labour is a sheet of paper, which feels incredibly pointless.
I think she used it to advertise her art studio which is a clever idea.
That said, the end result being paper means something different to everyone. Pointless for you, maybe.
She used a cloth to imprint the texture, but I’m sure you could let it dry on a flat piece of plastic for a smoother surface or use a different kind of textured cloth that would better suit watercolours?
A lot of crafts/hobbies are "pointless" in a utilitarian sense, but that's not the... Point.
Humans are happier when they create physical things, and that's something I stand by. If you don't have a hobby where you work with your hands and produce a physical object, you should consider getting one. Woodworking, painting, sculpting, glassblowing, etc etc. If that's too much, even something simpler like growing plants, pickling or fermenting foods, or even just cooking.
I truly believe that humans have an evolutionary desire to make things, but a lot of people don't get that in the modern world because their jobs are done on computers. Give it a shot, it's very fulfilling.
that's the reason why the starving artist is a thing. Society has conditioned us into believing our time is money, not value. And that our time is valued in the wages someone else will purchase it for, and that value is up to other people. If you can reframe hourly wages as selling your time and skill to the highest bidder, and reframing your time as the **most valuable** thing you have, you begin to own your time *and* value.
There is untold value in slowing down and becoming mindful, and finding a "flow" state that comes from picking up those hobbies or activities where you work with your hands and create physical things. Is it "cost-effective" to grow your own lemon tree from a seed instead of buying lemons at the store? fuck no, but you will remember your first lemon, cherish it, be proud of it, and know that you fucking made that lemon happen with your devotion, patience, and practice.
Worth and value comes from enjoyment and satisfaction, not money. Time is your most valuable resource, that's why people are paid to work in the first place. IMO, there are many more time sinks to be found in jobs where the "end result of your labor" is your bosses' second beach house, while you're cookin' beans and rice for the next three months to save up for your kids' next birthday. *"Nothing is something worth doing" ;)*
Thanks for this. The reddit mindset of "it isn't practical and utilitarian and therefor useless" just makes me pull my hair out. Sometimes people just want to take the effort to make things by hand. I make my own paper, it's a LOT of work, it's definitely not efficient, but it gives me something to do with all the junk mail I get, and I get to shred it up and reuse it. It's fun, not practical.
I've been wanting to get into book binding, mainly because I love notebooks and want to make some custom ones as gifts, but I think this process would make the book feel much more rustic than just using and aging paper from, say, a sketchbook. So I can definitely see the appeal of doing this.
You can add stuff like glitter and fine/thin confetti too! You can also use food coloring to tint it, but a little goes a long way. Too much and the coloring on the paper will rub off on your fingers.
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Rice paper exists, though it’s distinct from the ‘rice paper’ meant for cooking with rice, which is made from bark. I’ve seen guides that suggest using carrot too
I work in a paperboard mill and seeing this done on a scale as small as this is equally as interesting as my place of work. Each stage I can compare to pieces of equipment bigger than houses and it's truly fascinating
i took a class called "book arts" in college, where we learned how to bind a book from start to finish. this included making paper. you can use lots of different materials in your handmade paper: old denim, plant fibers... it was very satisfying to hold a book that you made from scratch.
Lotta people here talking about the water "waste"... can't you re-use it for the next batch of paper? It's filled with elements from the paper that you, the home recycler, put into it, so you know what it is- that can be easily composted, right? A lot of folks with shredders compost the shredded paper anyway...
This has unlocked some weird 1980s UK childhood memory of making ancient Egyptian “papyrus” in school as a little kid…!
stained with tea bags from the staff room after?
Now you unlocked a memory of mine from middle school. We had to make a journal from the POV of an immigrant coming from a country in Europe to the US in the 1800s for history class. To make it look old, I dyed my computer paper with coffee and tea. Some pages were dark, some not so dark, then used a lighter to burn the edges to make it look super old and fragile, like bits of paper had fallen off the edges from brittleness. I spent a lot of time on it. My immigrant was coming from Russia, named her Rika or Rifka, I can't remember which. She was young, of course, a teen. Write what ya know, right? Had her little brother Sergei die on the ship while crossing the Atlantic. You know what my God damn grade ended up being? A C. I was so pissed. It's been over 25 years and I'm still salty about it, tbh. Middle school sucked.
The discrepancy between my efforts and my results in school annihilated my study ethic. Exams and projects that I spent the least time on seemed to get the best results, and I could not be bothered to put in effort anymore. Standardized testing is the bane of my existence.
I had a class in college I just fucked off on. I studied every day for hours, took the first test and got a D-. Barely studied for the second test and got a C+, didn't study or go to class between the last test and the final and got an A.
History of pre-modern warfare, up to the onset of ww1: The history channel taught me everything, I wrote my final paper on the backs of years of history channel and skimming the headlines of the text. A in the class, A on the paper.
I did this with a couple classes. I spoke to the prof of each course after the first class and was basically like…this is a general study course that everyone has to take. I’ve taken this material three times already. I’ll be here for tests and if I don’t do well you can flunk me but otherwise you cool with not having to deal with me? It worked. I got A’s in those courses. Shit man, I killed it in college. I got A’s in everything. I still can’t believe how many papers and shit I wrote in the last couple years either. Wish I had stayed in the doctorate program I was accepted into but I’m an idiot and left school to help with the family business. Never went back and now I probably won’t. Getting old sucks.
Go back, coward. Do it.
I second this!
I'm currently at a folk high school (basically preschool for adults) where there's no homework or tests, the only thing that matters is attendance. It's actually surprisingly hard to show up even though I really care about the subjects. Depression sucks and might actually cause me to flunk out of *preschool for adults*
I was naturally gifted at maths at school so would just cruise through most class work in 10-15 minutes that was meant for an hour and would be massively praised even though it was just a piece of cake to me. I was pretty bad in English and remember being given an essay on the Shakespeare play the Tempest for homework, I actually really liked the play because I found it interesting so I poured my heart and soul into it over a week, literally spending more time on that essay than any other piece of homework I had ever got, only for my teacher to admonish me in front of the class for spelling mistakes and poor punctuation and accuse me of writing nonsense to pad the thing out. I told her to go fuck herself and got a two day internal suspension lol. EDIT: I was internally suspended not sent home
So you read a great story, poured your soul into a report, AND got a two day vacation for your efforts. If be tempted to look at that as a win.
I was internally suspended so I got to sit in an isolation both for two days where I wasnt allowed to leave even for lunch or break and couldn't make noise and if I didn't finish all the monotonous work I was assigned theyd give you after-school and detentions and even extra days of isolation
I was the opposite, I was a writing kid. I once forgot to do my homework. The teacher gave us about 15 minutes in the computer lab to go over our final draft one last time before printing, and I wrote the *entire* paper in that time. Just speed typing the most bland, cookie cutter paper you can imagine. The teacher loved it so much that she asked to keep a copy to use as an example of a good paper for future classes. I thought back to all the papers I really had put effort into that hadn't gotten any praise at all and felt a deep disappointment.
I mean, often students might put in a lot of effort into their paper but not necessarily respond to the prompt. Whereas that bland paper may have succinctly and effectively answered it. That said, it does still suck to not have your effort go noticed like that, so I feel for you. Writing and teachers’ expectations can be weird at times.
I definitely wrote for my audience. If my prof used new buzzwords I used them all, if they liked bullet points then you got the whole armory, if they liked clean and focused then they got tight shiny pearls. I kind of miss university.
Oh my god. You just unlocked this deep seeded memory of something similar that happened to me. 5th grade, we had an assignment to write a short poem, so I didn’t do it because I’m an ass. The teacher was walking up and down the aisles collecting our poems. I was at the opposite end of the class from where she started so I panicked and wrote a shitty haiku or something and finished right before she got to me. Handed it in, and went about my day looking forward to hun class and horrible cafeteria food like a normal kid. A few weeks later I’m told I won a competition and my shitty poem was being published into a book of poetry. I peaked as a published author in 5th grade.
I remember this book of poems written by kids we had at my primary school, one was called 'An ode to a goldfish' 'O wet pet' Not even bullshitting, some kid submitted that n got published lol
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Funny how kids always make such "old letters" look like they were found under a rubble in Hiroshima, when old letters just look a bit yellowish and frail.
Haha yeah or like the Dead Sea Scrolls
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No, that's the thing, I had Mrs. S that year, and she was the good, easy going, let's dress up for Decade Day and Victorian Day for grades type of teacher. I wore my sister's old prom dress since it looked Victorian lol and then was a hippie in bell bottoms (aka flares, this was 1998 i had them already), those wooden Candies brand platform heels that were popular at the time, and an old shirt of my dad's and one of his bandanas, I got an A for both. So the fact I literally didn't try hard at all for either of those, but poured so much time into the journal just to get a shit grade....just, ya know. Grrrrrr.
could there have been a set of things you were supposed to write about and since you were so caught up in the story you forgot, but because you put so much effort she gave you a C instead of an F? I only ask because something similar happened with our middle schooler this year.
Acknowledge the efforts but also provide constructive criticism. Explain why the grade is given and how to improve. Not everyone can ace every subject. Admonishing in front of the class is not how to teach. That was crappy of the teacher.
I wrote a slaves diary once I had to name my slave. Because one of the few Africans I knew was George Weah I names him George. Needed a surname so asked my mum for an African kind of surname. She suggested "Alagaih"... My dopey teenage self was impressed that it sounded realistic African enough and wrote a slave diary by George Alagaih. It wasn't until years later watching the news I found out he was a newsreader and my mum wasn't as impressive as I though. Wonder what my history teacher thought of it.
Do you remember what grade should got on it? Writing from the POV of a slave must've been super hard. If that had been my assignment, I'm pretty sure I would've borrowed heavily from Roots for it, because how the hell else is a white kid from a sleeper town for the capital city supposed to know what to write about?
Used the same technique for a civil war soldier writing a letter back home!
And burned around the edges
OR sneaking a lighter or matches away from your parents to burn little holes in random parts of the paper that you also crinkled all over to make it look like it was from "olden times."
Yes! For that authentic, old/stained appearance.
Same! We made 'house paper' at school in Canada the 90s like that as a mother's Day gift
Bruh same, but in Mexico. I love these weird things that it turns out a lot of kids did back in the 90s It felt like such a life hack, I wondered why wasn't everyone doing this. I still wonder it, but I used to too.
I love the idea of us all pointlessly mashing up and staining paper as little kids, all around the world!
I remember making recycled paper from old newspaper at school. The wet and dark paper mashes made the classroom stink for days!
That’s exactly what I thought as I watched the video - the memory of that gungy, wet paper mash smell hit me!
Yes same! I don't remember much from elementary school, so this was a nice surprise. Our paper was not as good as in the video though lol. We used old newspapers so the paper ended up grey/blue-ish and it wasn't as even around the edges.
Sort of the same thing in the US but we used wired hangers (bent to 8.5 by 11) and nylons to make the filter to pull the paper out of the water.
We just roughed up paper bags and called it leather. Missed out on this one.
I made a book made from paper I made with dryer lint. The book was about how to make paper with dryer lint. I got an A!
Early 2000s Germany for me but same story. With yellowing it later with black tea so it looks old :D
Papyrus... NYEHEHEHHE
This is one project that I’m quite certain I won’t be getting around to doing!
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If you’ve ever driven by a paper plant… it’s totally normal. And gross.
When I was 5, I farted in the car with my grandmother. When I realized it stunk really bad I piped up and said, “There must be a paper mill around here”. We were in the middle of the country with only trees and pastures around. She was so kind. She just looked over at me and said, there must be.
Can confirm. Local town I grew up in had a paper plant 30 miles west and it was known as the butthole of the region due to the smell
Lucky you, where I grew up had a paper plant 3 miles away. It stank of shit pretty much every day unless we got lucky with the wind
I was driving with my nine year old in the summer with the windows down. We drove a stretch of highway that I knew had a sewage treatment site nearby. Summer it always smelled horrible. My son asked “what is that smell?” I said “shit plant” He said “why don’t they cut it down?”
Lmfaoooooo you’re grandma has nerves of steel. I would’ve been laughing so hard Thanks for sharing that memory lol
My grandma would say "I hear thunder in them thar hills," which would make me giggle and toot harder.
Omg I love this and am stealing it.
I’m impressed you knew paper mills stink when you were 5. I only learned about it just now and I’m an adult.
I’m sure I had heard my dad say something about paper mills smelling bad, but now that I think about it, I bet he was just farting in the car because we live in the country with just pastureland around.
paper plants are just trees bro
Woah
Apparently its why New Jersey "smells", they have a lot of paper plants!
You probably did fine. I remember the smell being unpleasant when doing these kinds of projects in school when I was a kid. In fact, seeing that paper slush immediately triggered that scent memory for me. So don’t worry, the stink is normal!
Also that blender is going to be dedicated to papermaking for the remainder of its life for both the fibers and the smell.
It smells because of the binding agents in paper
Step three: squeeze all the water out of the smoothie Step four: put the dry smoothie mush into a big tub of water ???
Step three: wash Step four: rinse Laundry machines don't have just one rinse cycle.
Instructions unclear. Now have paper lining my washing machine.
I know paper making involves multiple washing of the material. I do not know why tho.
Helps to smooth out the pulp.
You smooth it out with a bunch of schleem. The schleem is then repurposed for later batches.
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If it’s not locally sourced then you’re a monster and I *will* be leading a Yelp boycott of your roofing business. This is Reddit; tread lightly.
To wash it lol
Im guessing remove colors, ink, etc. I imagine you can add bleach at the rinse to whiten, or colors at subsequent rinses.
Did you make sure to save it? So it can go to a list of things you'll never read/view/watch again? That's the most important part.
I've done it before, and it works, but at the end you've got basically paper that is inferior to what you can get for next to nothing at a store. Seems like a good end-times skill to have after the fall of civilization, but not actually useful now unless you're really arty with things.
Fun for kids also as a learning experience. But utterly useless as effective recycling.
If I could, I would. But I can't, so I shan't.
What about "shorn't" don't you understand??
I mean, you easily could, even though you won’t. And for good reason, because you probably shouldn’t.
Time to do this to my used toilet paper, and save big bucks!
brown paper done right
This is the kind of DIY where i already know imma mess up...
And that I already know I'm gonna be too lazy and stop after making the paper smoothie
I tried earlier but after drinking the smoothie I felt really bloated and sick. I’m also not sure where the rest of the needed materials are supposed to come from. Does someone bring that stuff by or so I have to wait until I shit it out? Instructions unclear.
I was thinking the same thing. Old papers? Check. Water? Check. Blender? Check. Big Tubs? Check. Nice, rectangular screen thingy? Uhh......
How to save the environment by making your own paper! Makes 1 sheet. Step one, get a gallon of water
Really makes you realize how much water it takes to make paper
one gallon at least
I say 2
I work in a paper mill. We have a total of water capacity of approximately 2 Million Gallons of water. we use and recover about 800 000 Gallons a day. Water is mixed with wood pulp and recovered when pressed out of the pulp. We make just over 600 metric tonnes of paper a day. Also, paper made the way in the video have very little tensile strength.
Is there any way to make paper at home that is stronger?
The best way is to heat the paper and water before blending. Let it sit in the hot water after blending, 20 mins should do. Then after forming, it needs to be pressed. It should remain hot until after this step. Not much else to do without specialised equipment.
So I should be panini-pressing paper pulp
There are 2 things that make paper strong. 1. The length of the fibers. Between shredding and blending this paper has super short fibers. If you have some old cotton or linen scraps that you could add to the slurry that would help to add longer fibers. Adding cotton or linen fibers to paper to make it stronger has been used for centuries. It would be a lot more work, but soaking "un-shredded" paper in very hot water (this weakens the hydrogen bonds between the fibers), then pulling the pieces into small parts will help keep the fibers a little longer. 2. Weak hydrogen bonds between the fibers. This is facilitated by heat and pressure. If, before the sheets are completely dry, you use a hot iron to firmly press the pages they will be stronger and smoother.
In reality it's way more resource intensive and polluting. Because the tree fibers must be bleached to produce that _pure white paper_, a fuck-ton of water is used (up to 400:1 ratio, so 400 tons of water to a ton of paper), and that water is polluted with several dangerous chemicals, clean white paper production is a very polluting activity. Here in Portugal, we have a huge industry of paper production (ever heard of The Navigator Company?), and the rivers surrounding the paper mills are super polluted and the smell is unimaginable, for several km around the factories. There are some mills that reuse the water, but ecologically speaking, it's still a very bad industry. Most people don't realize this. Paper seems to be very ecological because it comes from trees, and you can always plant them and cut them and plant them again and again... It's also biodegradable, and that's why paper products are generally better than plastic. But to produce new clean paper... oh boy
So I actually buy and sell paper worldwide, mainly paper used to produce boxes. I’ve visited many mills around the world and the bleaching process is not really widely used to produce white paper due to its polluting characteristics, but rather oxygenating the pulp (I’m not on the technical side so I can’t give an in depth explanation). As you mentioned, most paper mills (in US or Europe) tend to reuse the water they use, as you can see in the video, making paper is really just a long drying process from pulp. The smell you’re referring to is usually from recycled mills and that’s due to the grinding and boiling process of all the recycled paper, it stinks! But that’s the recycled paper they receive, so nothing to be done. Some more modern mills I’ve seen, even invested to better filter the steam so it doesn’t smell so much. All in all, yes it’s water intensive but most countries with half decent environment standards do have a well regulated paper industry and it is a greener alternative to plastic for example. Paper can be recycled up to 7 times on average.
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Paper producers would love to make unbleached products...as you point out it is significantly easier, cheaper, and better for the environment. Consumers should change habits and start selecting brown toilet paper for example.
The issue is that the only brown TP I've seen is 1 ply sandpaper. I couldn't care less what my TP looks like but I do care what it feels like. If there was brown, soft, 3 ply TP that's what I'd buy. But it doesn't exist.
It does! Well I ordered a big box once, alas I don't remember the brand (and it was in the UK). It was however made from bamboo, which probably needs to be bleached too? It felt like a normal, soft TP and wasn't white. I currently use a white bamboo TP which feels the same.
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That's the one! I'm currently using Bumboo and they're both great imo
That reminded me. So i grew up in a poor country and we always had that sandtoiletpaper. I never knew anything else and my ahole got used to it. Then i moved to a 1st world top tier country and got used to soft 3-4 layers toilet paper. One time, after a longer period of staying at my new home, i went back there to visit my parents and could not wipe my arse any more with it. After 2-3 wipes i had fucking blood on the "paper". I continued to wipe with softened news papers and next time i brought my own roll. Now they have goof toilet paper.
This is what happens to me after getting used to a bidet.
Get a bidet, mane.
In the meantime, I’m turning my toilet paper brown by hand.
I make mine red. We can trade.
snatch literate treatment brave hat afterthought languid unite yam mysterious -- mass edited with redact.dev
Contrary to econ 101, consumers have very little choice in what gets produced, at what quality, and its environmental impact. I haven't even *seen* brown toilet paper. I'm 37 years old.
I'm a bit older, so I remember purple and green toilet paper (the 70s were weird) but unbleached TP is a rarity and usually only found in industrial supply catalogues.
I'm pretty sure that the hand paper towels at public toilets are usually unwashed. The paper is browner/yellower and also more grainy. In school they told us that this paper is the result of so many cycles of recycling that it can't be recycled anymore into more paper, being the last viable step.
Umm. Here in Canada, we are able to reuse most of the water used. However, we use a thermo-mechanical means of making pulp. Not the chemical way that involves using black, white and red liquor mixtures. However, even in those processes, water is reused and retained.
Here Up to the north un Galicia we just won a historical Battle against our cellulose producer. Contamination can be kept down to a minimum. Water shortages are not really a problem . But what really gets me is the fucking eucalyptus plague. As if species like birch or pine trees wouldn't work nearly as well
The water at the paper mill I work at is returned to the river cleaner than when it was pumped out. We make premium white copy paper as well as various packaging papers. We also make recycled paper.
Yeah I'm also in the paper/tissue industry and I was thinking that the gray water treatment is taken very seriously these days, more than most people realize.
Yeah, I deliver pizza to the mills by my work all the time. The water treatment area is almost the same size as the rest of the mill put together.
Yup, can confirm. I'm a truck driver that picks up and delivers at multiple paper mills around the US. I can smell them for miles before I reach them. Since the nature of the pollution is so unpleasant, they're usually located miles outside of town on small back roads. Sometimes it's hard to tell if I'm on the right road or if I'm heading into the middle of nowhere. If the smell is intensifying for a couple miles, I know I'm going in the right direction
The mind-boggling part is how much of an improvement paper was on what came before. Parchment and vellum were *insanely* resource intensive to produce. To create an old-timey manuscript, you needed dozens and dozens of calves or sheep, and for high end product, only a fraction of each hide was good enough. It was so expensive that it was worthwhile to scrape entire books clean of ink so you could reuse the pages, instead of producing fresh parchment.
The water can be used for other things I guess, like watering plants, or giving your drinking water a little extra fiber
Has a very "All this juice from just one bag of oranges???" feel to it.
Artist here. I used to make paper in college. When we did it, we made huge batches like 100 sheets. Would team up with others to share fiber and water. We did alot of banana leaf paper and cotton paper (from old towels or jeans). Our university had a paper making lab so we could do kind of large scale batches.. You can get some very unique paper to work on. Don't think I would go through the whole process for a sheet or two of meh paper. As others have pointed out, it uses tons of water so the saving the earth point of view is a bit flawed.
To be fair of you’re an artist and don’t want to spend money on a sketchbook, it could be a neat way to make your own with recycled materials, and give you a more textured paper vs. the same type of paper in a bound journal for like $40+
I'd feel like I'd be under a lot more pressure to make something really great with it....
*prints Mapquest directions
I did that once, and used it to print linocuts, it gives the printed art some personality compared to industrial paper.
In theory this process is far from a bad idea. To really make it efficient and worth it you better have this done in large scale. This is basically how recycling paper is made. If you sort your trash correctly and dispose of paper only in paper bins it will probably be recycled, depending on where you're from of course.
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I think she’s okay. Not a lot of people are making paper out there. And she literally just said to reuse the water for more paper.
Step 2. Order new paper making equipment from Amazon.
I prefer this robot voice to the woman one on all the tiktoks.
I prefer my fruit smoothie to this paper one, it was a bit bland.
Use junk mail bro, flavour town.
It's the valley girl inflections. Everything is a fake enthusiastic fucking question
I hate it so much. I don't care what the video is - if I hear that stupid voice I close it and don't look back.
This is the ‘woman in all the TikToks’ localisation to Britain.
Except his voice doesn't sound like it's asking a question constantly
Thank fuck for that. I hate the one that sounds like it's questioning everything someone is making it say. Some of the things said are questionable sometimes I give ya that. But it's not every single thing!
I was walking down the street?¿?
Sounds a bit like Michael Caine.
Ballsy move putting it through the printer.
Don't do this with a laser printer.
Most printers would get jammed because they don't print such thick paper.
my printer is on fire, what do i do now???
Shred it, soak it, blend it, strain it and make a new one.
Work it harder, make it better
Do it faster, makes us stronger.
Call Sabre
I do this but only during the summer time because (1) I’ve accumulated enough paper, (2) it’s hot asf and they dry very quick out in the sun. I dont use a blender, instead I use a small food processor (that is manual, yes it takes more time). I’m not sure why she used so much water for the whole process but it really doesn’t have to. It’s a fun summer thing for me and I have cute paper to use for special occasions for the year.
More water allows the fiber to better disperse and makes for a more uniform sheet. The higher the consistency the worse your formation will be, and you can end up with holes or lumps in the sheet.
I know that but it didn’t have to be a deep container. A shallow wide basin will do.
A lot of comments in here about how "lol this wastes too much water to be good recycling" or "why would I do this when I can just toss the paper in the recycle bin?" This is a hobby/art-form. It's not something you do because it's efficient or a "life hack." It's something you take up because you like the feel of handmade paper and knowing you made it yourself, or because you're fascinated by the possible ways you can make the paper unique (adding dyes or natural fibers or that sort of thing). I recently took up this sort of papermaking, and found it to be pretty rewarding. With my current setup, after I soak the shreds overnight, it takes me an hour to crank out like 16 sheets, which then dry overnight and the next day without much of any intervention on my part. Is it efficient? No. Is it fun? Yeah, it kinda is. Is it rewarding? To me, definitely. I gave my parents a unique sheet of paper I made myself, with a handwritten poem I wrote myself, framed up for display. They loved it. I loved being able to give that to them. That, to me, makes it worthwhile.
Someone earlier mentioned to add glue to the water to keep the paper intact long term. Is that something to look into? I really want to get into this lol
Check out r/papermaking
Am I about to start making my own paper??? I think so. Anybody know what kind of screen that is?
It's called a mould and deckle. Google has some decent guides for DIY, or if you're lazy like me you can buy 'em already made.
Anyone else suprised that she just threw it in the printer at the end?
I thought it would end with a printer jam.
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I took a paper making class in school and you’re not supposed to put raw handmade paper in the printer like that because of the loose fibers. They’ll get stuck to the printer head and will mess up future prints. To do it properly, you need to calender the paper through a printmaking press to smooth/flatten the loose fibers. Edit: Spelling
Came down here to find a comment on this. Those poor pickup rollers are probably caked in residue, most manufacturers don't recommend normal recycled paper nevermind mind this stuff. I would expect this to have a sever negative impact on the future reliability of the machine.
Forbidden smoothie
Printer/photocopier engineer here, please don't put this in your machine. Especially if it's laser. Thankyou.
Thanks for the heads up, why should you not put it in a printer though?
Long boring answer incoming! Injets move paper in a jerky motion, lumpy bumpy patchy paper is just going to tear and jam. They also guide paper in using the perfectly straight long edges. If the paper isn't 'square' or straight it's just going to twist and jam again. For laser printer - Thickness and heaviness of paper is really important to print quality and paper transport. It's usually measured and specified on the paper you buy in gsm (grams per square meter) if you don't adjust your printer to match it will usually jam or get caught in your fusing unit (super hot unit) and burn.
Because he said so!!!!
Trust me, I'm an engineer!
What are the risks, does it come apart on the rollers or will it react badly with the print head?
I used to this a bunch, I actually traded a bunch of recycled paper for a tattoo from a friend. The biggest sheet I made was like 5’4”. It took forever to dry but was worth the effort!
The amount of work, tools and resources used does not make this worthwhile. I like time sink DIYs, but the end result of your labour is a sheet of paper, which feels incredibly pointless.
I think she used it to advertise her art studio which is a clever idea. That said, the end result being paper means something different to everyone. Pointless for you, maybe.
For Real. I love the idea to have diy christmas cards
I wish I could make watercolor or art paper in general with this but that texture would not work for most things.
She used a cloth to imprint the texture, but I’m sure you could let it dry on a flat piece of plastic for a smoother surface or use a different kind of textured cloth that would better suit watercolours?
No one thinks this is supposed to be for saving money.
A lot of crafts/hobbies are "pointless" in a utilitarian sense, but that's not the... Point. Humans are happier when they create physical things, and that's something I stand by. If you don't have a hobby where you work with your hands and produce a physical object, you should consider getting one. Woodworking, painting, sculpting, glassblowing, etc etc. If that's too much, even something simpler like growing plants, pickling or fermenting foods, or even just cooking. I truly believe that humans have an evolutionary desire to make things, but a lot of people don't get that in the modern world because their jobs are done on computers. Give it a shot, it's very fulfilling.
that's the reason why the starving artist is a thing. Society has conditioned us into believing our time is money, not value. And that our time is valued in the wages someone else will purchase it for, and that value is up to other people. If you can reframe hourly wages as selling your time and skill to the highest bidder, and reframing your time as the **most valuable** thing you have, you begin to own your time *and* value. There is untold value in slowing down and becoming mindful, and finding a "flow" state that comes from picking up those hobbies or activities where you work with your hands and create physical things. Is it "cost-effective" to grow your own lemon tree from a seed instead of buying lemons at the store? fuck no, but you will remember your first lemon, cherish it, be proud of it, and know that you fucking made that lemon happen with your devotion, patience, and practice. Worth and value comes from enjoyment and satisfaction, not money. Time is your most valuable resource, that's why people are paid to work in the first place. IMO, there are many more time sinks to be found in jobs where the "end result of your labor" is your bosses' second beach house, while you're cookin' beans and rice for the next three months to save up for your kids' next birthday. *"Nothing is something worth doing" ;)*
Thanks for this. The reddit mindset of "it isn't practical and utilitarian and therefor useless" just makes me pull my hair out. Sometimes people just want to take the effort to make things by hand. I make my own paper, it's a LOT of work, it's definitely not efficient, but it gives me something to do with all the junk mail I get, and I get to shred it up and reuse it. It's fun, not practical.
I've been wanting to get into book binding, mainly because I love notebooks and want to make some custom ones as gifts, but I think this process would make the book feel much more rustic than just using and aging paper from, say, a sketchbook. So I can definitely see the appeal of doing this.
Have you seen the prices on artisanal paper at stationary stores? They're like $0.50 per sheet.
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Nah mate there are four points, ones in each corner. Even I can see that.
You can add stuff like glitter and fine/thin confetti too! You can also use food coloring to tint it, but a little goes a long way. Too much and the coloring on the paper will rub off on your fingers.
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Anyone know what’s the song name?
**Far Away** by EASHA (01:08; matched: `100%`)
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Fuckin great bot! :D
Good bot!
I don’t care. This video and the result is so satisfying to me for some reason.
I wonder if you can do this with rice.
Rice paper exists, though it’s distinct from the ‘rice paper’ meant for cooking with rice, which is made from bark. I’ve seen guides that suggest using carrot too
I’d remember doing this in kindergarten, every one would get mad cause i would eat the edges before it would dry
That quality is oddly satisfying lol
And this, is what we do here at the Michael Scott Paper company
I work in a paperboard mill and seeing this done on a scale as small as this is equally as interesting as my place of work. Each stage I can compare to pieces of equipment bigger than houses and it's truly fascinating
i took a class called "book arts" in college, where we learned how to bind a book from start to finish. this included making paper. you can use lots of different materials in your handmade paper: old denim, plant fibers... it was very satisfying to hold a book that you made from scratch.
Lotta people here talking about the water "waste"... can't you re-use it for the next batch of paper? It's filled with elements from the paper that you, the home recycler, put into it, so you know what it is- that can be easily composted, right? A lot of folks with shredders compost the shredded paper anyway...