Botanical Printing #1 Swap

Hello ladies,

In this swap we will be making ourselves a basic arsenal of printed papers for which to make alterations etc when a new journal type swap comes along.

This is a short series on Botanical Printing and ways to achieve greatness and wonder from nature.

As it is late Autumn in the southern hemisphere I will run the leaf botanical Printing first.

THE SWAP #1 Botanical Leaf Prints by the boiling method

The following youtube video has all the information needed to follow the steps. Basically we are selecting leaves and if you have them flowers, from your curbside, a tree, your balcony, weeds and grass if that is all you have near to you. Any type of botany will work to some degree, celery tops, carrot slices, outer onion skins (not the flesh), frozen cherry's or berry's, nigella seeds, raid your spice cabinet ... if you only have that at hand. I am trying to aid all of us that are still in seclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkGqjjnxqOo

Just one thing. DO NOT PUT IN VINEGAR in your water like she does in the video. It will eat your paper within a year. ACID does not like paper or rather likes it so much it destroys the quality.

The results are an amazing array of imprints onto your papers. It is recommended to use a strong paper such as watercolour paper as if it is a light flimsy paper, it will mulch when boiled for the hour, or it will tear when the wet paper is separated. When undoing your papers and leaves, have newspaper layed out, with paper towel ontop and allow each laying out your papers seperately on it, so it absorbs the moisture and will dry flat. Place each almost dried paper within pages of a disused book to flatten properly. Then you won't get the buckles like she has in the video.

We will have 2 partners to send images of our valiant efforts. There is NO WRONG images. You may be greatly surprised at what evolves from boiling spices! If all you get is coloured papers then that is a bonus anyway. The secret I must say, is firmly clamping those pages together, as I have had some so-so results from not binding well and not having a heavy rock. If no tiles are available to you, or large rocks, use bricks or garage heavy objects.

Best of luck and I hope you will join me in making some really fun papers.