Productive Weekend – Making Paper and Owl

It was very productive weekend for me.  I stayed home most of the time because of the heat and tiredness.  I spent time in front of tv a lot, but also enjoyed making some things.  One of them are recycled paper.  Yes, D and I made lots of paper at home using a paper making kit we bought online before Christmas.

First, we teared up paper and soaked in water overnight.

The process is very simple, but it just took some time – we stayed in the laundry room for about 1 hour transforming the soaked paper into pulps using a blender, shaping the pulps into A4 size, and hanging the paper to dry.

Scoop the pulps using a frame,

Pressing the pulps into tea towels,

And drying the paper.

Here are the completed recycled paper!  Looks perfect…

We did this process 3 times over the weekends, and made about 60 pieces of paper.  I’m using the paper for Bagelier and my another website (not completed yet) in future!

Another thing I did over the weekend was….  sewing!!  I actually can’t believe I was type of person who likes doing this stuff, but I did enjoy it.  Buying a sewing machine was D’s idea; we bought Brother sewing machine at just over $70.00 from Spotlight on the Boxing Day.  It had been more than 10 years since last time I used a sewing machine.  I never did sewing outside school;  I didn’t really have interest in sewing.  But now I completed my first work “owl” and am working on my second one “Baby on Board” stuffing toy to put in my car.

Making this owl took quite a long time (as I totally had forgotten how sewing a stuffed toy works), but my “Baby on Board” is nearly finished; I will upload the photo once I’m done!

My Chopsticks -My Hashi-

I bought plastic chopsticks from Japan for my lunch at the office.  In Japan, everywhere I looked there was this word “ECO”.  Eco bags, eco fridge, eco house etc…

Carrying your own chopsticks and not using any disposable chopsticks are getting common in Japan.  (called My Hashi = my chopsticks)  Most restaurants serve disposable chopsticks when customer orders a meal, and they are thrown away after used.  There were used to be lots and lots of rubbish everyday in food industry.  Since people started to carry their own chopsticks and use them in restaurants or for convenience store food, the amount of rubbish actually decreased!  That’s a great news 🙂

There is another merit to be an eco-person in Japan.  If you bring your own eco bag when you shop, and not use any plastic bags from the shops, you can get some points on your shopping member cards and they can be exchanged to either cash or some prizes! 🙂  You can do it everyday and good for wallet and environment.

At my office in Perth I get free lunch everyday, and used to use disposable chopsticks.  Now I’m using my own My Hashi 🙂  (← from 100 yen shop again )