MY LATEST PROJECT: MAKING JEANS PAPER

FEBRUARY 15, 2024   |   ART  

Good day friends !!!!
I simply cannot wait to tell you about my latest jeans-based creation.

A while ago, the durability bar on my favorite pair of jeans reached zero, so I decided to do something I've wanted to do for a really long time. I had heard of people making paper out of jeans before, and if you know me, you know I like to make things out of jeans.

When making paper by hand, you can really use any source of natural cellulose fiber, perhaps including jeans? I checked and these jeans were 100% cotton, which is apparently very important, because synthetic fibers in your paper make it fall apart (It's also just gross and probably bad for the environment). So, I began disassembling my beloved pair of jeans.

The first step here is to turn the jeans into julp (jeans pulp). How do you make julp (jeans pulp)? I just chopped the fabric up into small bits using a rotary cutter and cutting mat, and then added it to a kitchen blender, along with some water, and some shreds of recycled paper just to help the consistency a bit. Blend it up and you get some very glooby and weirdly foamy julp.

Then it's just the standard process of making paper! There weren't really any unique challenges introduced in these stages by using jeans to make the paper. So, I won't really go into too much detail - if you are interested in doing this yourself, there are many wonderful tutorials in books and on the web!

And, the paper turned out excellent! It did not wrinkle too much while drying, and it has a wonderful soft, clothy feel to it. Many tiny blue fibers are visible throughout, and in a few spots, larger intact fibers are visible, lending a wonderful texture.

PICTURES INCOMING! please be patient :p

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this site is pretty young. I might go ahead and make archive entries for projects I did before I started this page! keep checking back in thank you !!!!!!

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note to self: redo the layout of this page