Recycled Origami Paper

This is the beginning of my Valentines Day preparations. I'm going to be making bouquets of paper flowers, but to do so I needed some origami paper - recycled, of course.

I have a huge box of books that the local library was throwing out. They're all damaged in some way that made them useless to the library (missing pages, water damage, ect), but for the most part they're still useful to me. So I grabbed a book from the box and ran my knife along the spine to remove it. Then I cut the pages down to 5x5" squares, since that was the biggest I was going to be able to get out of this book.

They're not absolutely exact (I'm not a machine), but they're as close as humanly possible. I'd say the worst of them probably has 1/36" error in measurement.

Then I grabbed a wooden stamp I bought from Catfluff on ArtFire (she's got tons of them and I'll definitely be ordering more) and started stamping. Now I'm just waiting for them to dry and then I'll press them in a book for a few days, since paper tends to curl when it gets wet.

I want to mention that I failed at stamping at first. I tried over and over with different amounts of paint and water, with sponges and paint brushes, every stamping technique I could think of and it didn't work. I was just about to give up when I remembered that Fluffy had mentioned something in the forums - these stamps are originally made for body art - henna, to be exact. Of course, skin is a lot softer than the wooden table top I was working on. So I put a towel under my work space, and it worked perfectly. In fact, I think it might have been too soft! I might try using foam floor tiles next time (the puzzle piece ones that are made for work shops and kitchens and such).

I haven't decided yet if I'll be selling packs of origami paper or not. I'm going to concentrate on getting my bouquets done first. However, if you like the paper, I'd be happy to make up a custom order just contact me through my ArtFire shop (EccentricOcean) or this site. I can make origami paper in any size up to about 6x6" and I can stamp in any color. Just remember that this paper is thicker than regular origami paper, so it will be hard to do more complex models. If you need thinner paper I can have a look in my pile. There might be a book that was printed on thinner paper, but it still won't be nearly as thin as some of the origami paper I've seen.