...while the blender was out

I had some broccoli languishing in my refrigerator this week-end and it inspired me to make some cream of broccoli soup. I don’t use my blender very often so I keep it in a box in the basement. This helps free up valuable space in my kitchen. My basement…well on occasion it does become a dumping ground for “stuff”. Long story short, I headed down to excavate it to cream up my soup.

While I was moving things around to uncover the blender, I came across a huge bag of paper scraps and my paper making supplies. I was reminded of a project on my list that I hadn’t gotten to yet: paper bowls. So, while the blender was out, I decided to make one. I started by tearing little scraps of blue paper and placing them in the blender with some water to make a pulp.

I decided to use a pan bottom as my mold and sprayed it with cooking spray in lieu of official mold release which I haven’t been able to find. I used a too much water to make my pulp and had to wring it out a bit before applying it to the pan bottom. The pulp went on fairly easily and before long I had a nice even base. Now it was time to dry it all out. I set the oven on low and put the pan with its paper hat in to dry. I was a little worried about starting a fire so I only left the oven on for about a half hour. By morning, the bowl was dry enough to remove from the mold, which it did beautifully.

Hmmm, the bowl was papery and weak and not good for any purpose as far as I could tell. It held its form well but was very fragile and had to be handled with extreme care or it would tear apart. While gazing at the bowl, I began to envision the sky blue bowl as a base for another paper project I had hanging around. Out came the mulberry paper and water color paints.
This technique is called washi chigiri-e. Paper shapes are torn from the mulberry paper and sprayed with a little water. A brush dipped in water color paint is then touched to the edge of the shape and the paint seeps into the paper. I chose to create a sunflower to place in the bowl.

I thought it only fair to showcase a failure as well as my successes. So here it is in all its lame glory, a stupid paper bowl serving no purpose whatsoever. I’m not sure what I ever thought I would do with a paper bowl but at least it’s off my list of things to do. I’ll keep thinking on it but for now I’m putting it back in my bag of scrap paper to recycle into some other project someday. By the way, the soup was delicious!