paper making at the printing museum - houston

several weeks ago, we ventured into downtown and visited the Printing Museum. they just so happened to have drew cameron from combat paper, which was a stepping stone into our research of paper making. 

i had SO much fun watching him do his thing, watching gary do his paper thing, and just having some pretty sweet family time.

i've said it before and i'll say it again--i'm in love with houston. this city has everything and i love exploring it.

going into the museum, we took a few minutes to peruse the exhibits and take photos. then we met drew and he immediately got his hands wet and started making paper. 

his whole setup is mobile. he has pelican briefs he carries his paper, deckle & mold, stencils, and most importantly, the hollander beater. 

he showed us the colored fibers through the squirt bottle, which he uses to color his paper through the stencils (more below).

the kids were a little bored at the beginning. luckily, snacks always distracts them a bit. i also ended up handing the camera to andrew and away he went through the whole museum snapping photos. he loved it.

once you dip your mold into the vat of paper, you press it down and let the water drip off. drew had a ton of screen printing stencils which he used to make colorful art on each sheet. you lay the stencil on the sheet, then spray the colored fibers onto the stencil to create the art. 

i think i made two sheets, i lost count how many gary made, and andrew made one. 

i love it when he gets involved...i took two quick snapchat videos of him making it too 

they have a pretty sweet paper making studio at the museum. full of classes and workshops which i sooo badly want to try. when we headed in there i was literally in an artists dream house.

they had on the wall, this gigantic paper art piece. it was amazing! i kinda wanna make one too now.

drew had the hollander beater going on. he showed us the fibers he used and chatted us about his travels and techniques. pretty cool dude, so nice.

unfortunately these things are really expensive and come on, our paper business isn't really profitable {yet} but ooooff, it'd sure be sweet to have one. they're pretty nifty machines.

the boys were still hanging out, everybody praised us at how good they were being. i mean, what kind of kids do they hang out with?! 

so i made a collage of the pictures andrew took throughout the museum. how do you think he did? 

i think he is a stellar photographer. i've never seen that face on me before (which was really surprising) and that blue steel from the husband? HOT.

enough said. we just totally geeked over paper and family time and that day was a pretty great day for the books.

have a happy week everyone.