Hi, my name is Renske. I'm an industrial design student from The Netherlands who's interested in medical and environmental design. In my study, we use a lot of paper. I mean A LOT. I think this is a wast. So I tried to reuse this paper in different projects. I started this with doing material research and experiments. This instructable is one of the projects I did in this paper project. I hope you enjoy it and I'm curious to see if you tried it yourself and how it turned out!

Step 1: Step 1: Make a Mold and Deckle

To make a sheet of paper you will need a mold and deckle to sift the paper fibers from the water. It's very simple to make this! All you'll need is two picture frames, a staple gun and some mesh, just the kind you can get from a DIY store, the stuff that keeps the mosquito's outside.

Take out the glass and the back of the frame. Be careful with the glass, it can have sharp edges! Make sure all you have is two frames. I decided to take to fairly small frames because the bigger the frames the bigger the tub needs to be.

Once you prepared your frames, cut out a piece of the mesh in the size of your frame. It's better to make it to big than to small so don't go to easy on the mesh.

Use your staple gun to attach the mesh to one of the frames. Try to make it as tied as possible.

Step 2: Step 2: Prep Your Pulp

So, this is the moment to express how you really feel about all your homework, reports, etc. It's time to gather paper and shred it in a blender. This can be many different kinds of paper, but I don't recommend the shiny paper.

Put some water in the blender and put in pieces of paper. Now, you can try out what works best for the amount of water and paper. If it's to much paper, the blender won't work as well and if it's not enough paper your recycled paper will be very thin and fragile. It depends on the size of your tub but you might need to blend a couple of portions of pulp to get a good amount of paper fibers in the tub.

Make sure you use an old blender. Once you blend paper, it will release toxic substances which makes it unhealthy to use the blender for food after this project.

Step 3: Step 3: Filling the Tub and Making Paper

So, this is the moment to express how you really feel about all your homework, reports, etc. It's time to gather paper and shred it in a blender. This can be many different kinds of paper, but I don't recommend the shiny paper because these fibers will intertwine poorly with each other and also the 'normal' paper.

Put some water in the blender and put in pieces of paper. Now, you can try out what works best for the amount of water and paper. If it's to much paper, the blender won't work as well and if it's not enough paper your recycled paper will be very thin and fragile. It depends on the size of your tub but you might need to blend a couple of portions of pulp to get a good amount of paper fibers in the tub.

Make sure you use an old blender. Once you blend paper, it will release toxic substances which makes it unhealthy to use the blender for food after this project.

Get a tub and fill it up with some water so it's about 5 to 10 cm high. (Look how freaking cute my doggo is!!!!!!!)

Put your pulp in the tub. You can spread it out with your hands. Get your mold and deckle. The mold (with mesh) should be on the bottom and the deckle (just the frame) should be on top. Hold them together and put them in the tub. Wiggle around a little bit and pull them out of the water while keeping them straight. Let the water drain out for a little bit.

Remove the mold. Get another piece of mesh slightly bigger then the picture frames. Put this over the paper pulp and turn the frame around. You can give it a tap on the table and it will come of the deckle. If you see pieces sticking to the deckle, just give it a little ear flick to get it of.

Now, you can press some water out.

Picute from: https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/making-paper-z...

Step 4: Step 4: Cover Your Cup

To make a cup form you will need a mold. I used a paper cup, but if you have any plastic cups at home you can use those to, as long as they are bendable, otherwise you wont get the paper cup of (easily).

If you are using a paper cup, you can cover it with some plastic foil. This is not really necessary with plastic cups but you can do so if you prefer.

Now get your wet piece of paper and start shaping it around your mold. Do this a couple of times with multiple pieces of paper. You will notice, once the paper pulp gets pressed, even slightly, it will stick. So the first one can be a bit of a puzzle, but it will only get easier ;)

Step 5: Step 5: Plant Your Seeds!

Okay, alright. You fist have to dry your cup. You can let your cup dry for about (half) a day, but this depends on where you dry it. Obviously, I recommend doing this at a warm place. Be careful with fire if you are drying it by a fire place. It works great outside in the sun (if it's not to cold) or near the heating.

Once the container has dried, you can fill it up with some soil and seeds. You can water the seeds (and keep them warm! They like that!). Once the seeds have started to grow into little plants, you can plant them WITH THE CONTAINER directly into soil!! How great is that?!