I had an epic fail with trapped embossing and it made me think about the qualities of paper, particularly used with water-soluble mediums. Paper interests me, as I’m sure it does many crafters, and one of the most interesting tours I’ve ever enjoyed was a paper mill in Wisconsin with a Club Scrap group.
Paper is generally made using wood pulp, with higher-quality paper (especially watercolor paper) getting additional cotton lint. The highest quality paper may be made from 100% cotton lint or even cotton textiles, which is described as “cotton rag”. Cotton textiles have longer fibers than cotton lint.
Commercially-made, general use paper has additives, but the most important one for my topic is sizing. Sizing stops ink from absorbing into the paper, bleeding out from its point of application. Papers like toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towels generally don’t have any sizing. Copy paper, notebook paper, craft cardstock, and watercolor paper do have sizing, and that can be internal, external, or both. Internal sizing means ingredients are added to the pulp as the paper is made, and external sizing is a coating applied to the surface of the paper. Sizing can be manufactured (alkyl ketene dimer) or natural (gelatin, wheat starch).
As a crafter, the most important takeaway is that detergent breaks down sizing so if you wash your brushes or stamps with detergent, rinse thoroughly to avoid transferring detergent to your paper.
Out of curiosity, I took three punched pieces from every variety of watercolor and mixed media paper I had on hand and put those in tiny jars with water to see what would break down fastest and slowest. I threw in some copy paper, some Neenah 110 pound, some 100% cotton “resume paper”, and some bristol for comparison. The pieces were a 1” circle, a tiny scalloped circle, and a heart… except some paper was too tough for the heart punch, so those got a 1/4” circle. (These tiny jars are left from the Bonne Maman advent calendar and hold 30 g, about 1 ounce.)
Paper will break down in acid and heat. I can’t imagine ever applying vinegar or lemon juice to a craft project, but I certainly do apply heat. I put the jars of paper pieces and water on the heating plate for my slow cooker and brought them to about 200 degrees (the temperature of the average craft heat gun) for 10 minutes.
After 24 hours, the copy paper was visibly degrading. Where the paper had been bent a little in the process of punching the 1” circle the paper was developing a hole, and paper fiber is visible in the water. The other samples were intact, but I was interested to see that some were floating (had not become completely water-logged) and some had sunk to the bottom (fibers are water-logged.) That’s not good or bad, all the papers are fine, but I want to know because I’m pretty heavy-handed, so I need paper that is going to stand up to my spills and mistakes!
Sinkers:
Neenah 110 lb
Strathmore Bristol
Mofuny Mixed Media
Arches watercolor
Strathmore 100% cotton 32 lb
Distress watercolor
Distress heavy stock
Dylusions mixed media
Floaters:
Arteza watercolor
American Craft Vicki Boutin mixed media
Strathmore watercolor
I’m trying for a no-shopping year (and failing miserably, but that’s a separate topic) so I won’t be buying any paper, just trying to use up what I have. I can’t help noticing, though, that American Crafts Vicki Boutin mixed media paper is nice. It has a very smooth surface, nice body without being too heavy, and it takes watercolor beautifully. I’m impressed with the Arteza watercolor paper as well, but I’m not a watercolor artist so its qualities are not quite what I’m looking for in paper. The Vicki Boutin is pretty reasonably priced at scrapbook.com (https://www.scrapbook.com/store/ac-343917.html – not an affiliate link) at $0.82 per 12 x 12 page before shipping and sales tax. The price is double at Amazon.
I’ll post again with more updates as the experiment progresses!
Day 6: The Ranger Tim Holtz Distress heavystock is splitting into two layers. The American Crafts Vicki Boutin mixed media, Strathmore watercolor, and Arteza watercolor papers are still floating.
Papercraft Crystal 