Recycled Paper Bowl

I made mine using mostly recycled crayon wrappers, but any paper will work, junk mail, magazines, etc.

All you need is:
water
scrap paper 
old blender
tape
plastic wrap or plastic grocery bag
plastic or glass bowl
a towel, or felt squares
glitter (optional)

Step 1 Soak Paper

Everyone is making recycled crayons to use those leftover nubs.  To recycle even further, I found something to do with those bits of paper the nubs come in.  Of course once you start making crayons, it's hard to stop.  I bought ... a few packs of crayons to do this with, so I had a lot of wrappers.  If you don't have any, that's fine, just use what ever scrap paper you have lying around.  
I divided the wrappers by color.  If you don't want to separate by colors, that's fine, it comes out a little grayish, but looks awesome with some glitter thrown in.
Rip the paper into bits, squares around 1 inch work good, but they can be a little bigger or smaller.  Soak the paper overnight.  I used empty jars, so I could put one color in each.  

Comments

[inhabitart]

thats really cool..

[krabs]

Thank you so much!!! you used simple steps and ingredients everyone has and created it into one of the most useful products in our daily life!! Thank you because i have been trying to look for something like this to use with paper!

[12koolgirl]

Could I maybe rip up the wrappers even smaller and stir the mixture? My mother won't let me use her blender :(

[jnifrwebb]

I got my 4 year old son a kit so he could do some too. It was a bowl with a spoon. We followed the instructions and it worked pretty well. All you have to do is tear the paper into smaller bits and let it soak longer. We did ours a full 24 hours, and stirred it every now and then through out the day. There were still some pieces that were pretty big, so he got in there with his hands and squished it around like he was making meatloaf (his "most favoriteist part ever"). If you use a blender, it is nearly impossible to get all the paper out and make it safe to use for food again. That's why I got one at goodwill to use. so your mom is totally right.

[12koolgirl]

Thank you so much!

[kostica1]

It looks great. One of the rare instructables that i have all the materials for. I'm definetly trying it. I'l send a picture.

[l8nite]

step 3 looks like a purple milkshake, lol. Nice "ible ! You can add the fibers from a dryers lint catcher to add strenght to the paper or bleach and then dye the lint to make a nice paper by itself. To add strenght without having to make a piece real thick you can also add acrylic paint, clear or colored, to the mix before straining out the water, add enough acrylic paint and you have a type of clay thats easily moldable for free form sculptures. Thank you for sharing your project

[jnifrwebb]

In highschool I signed up for photography, but they didn't build the new lab over the summer like they were supposed to. Instead the class got changed to sculpting, taught by the photography teacher of course. Our projects were things like paperplate masks and pinched clay pots. Paper sculpting was the final project. We made paper, wire framed sculptures and bowls. The bowls were the only thing that dried in time for us to take home. My problem with the way we were taught was we were handed packs of new paper to shred. This way it is a nice recyclable project.
I used to add elmers glue to make it stronger, but one day I didn't and found it worked just fine with out.