Pulp it!
Paper is probably the most common and easy material to find on the streets. Under the shape of cardboard, napkins, flyers and so on. Its main use is to carry a product, service or information for a short moment. After having fulfilled its role, it often becomes waste, filling trash bins and containers, before being recycled or burned.
Using cardboard or paper as the main material and sticky rice flour as the glue it is possible to create a very sticky clay, which once dry, becomes strong. This material is easy to mould, takes little energy to make, uses no chemicals or dangerous tools and is cheap. The clay can be moulded as plastic and even replace it when the object doesn't need to be in contact with water. The time of drying can last from a few days to a few weeks depending on the size of the objects, the temperature and moisture in the air.
The project aims to create and share technics and recipes online in order to encourage the personal creation of objects.
Making process
The recipe is simple: Paper pulp and rice glue:
Making paper clay:
Take some paper or cardboard and blend it with water, mix to a thin pulp.
Take out the water by pressing the mix into a tote bag.
Making glue:
Boil some water and put it into a blender.
Add some rice flour until the texture is more a less similar to a Bechamel sauce.
Mix the two ingredients in a bucket with a ratio 1/3 glue for 2/3 pulp.
Add more glue if it feels too thick and add more pulp if it feels too liquid.
Apply the clay and be sure to let it in a place it can dry.
Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.
Ingredients
Cardboard, paper, sticky rice flour