I Made Paper From Pineapples (and Other Weird Materials)

A while ago I did this project where I collected random people's trash from downtown and then made my own paper out of it. And ever since then there's been a question that's been marinating in my mind and legit keeping me up at night. What other materials can be turned into paper? So I'm on a quest to take four unusual materials and see if I can even make paper with them, and then through a series of tests find out which one is the superior DIY paper. The first one I'm gonna try is celery. This has been sitting in the fridge for like a week now, and it's one of those things that you buy thinking, oh yeah I'm gonna become healthy, gonna become a celery guy, and then you never eat it and it just goes bad. So today I'm actually gonna do something with it. I have this very random memory of growing up when we were kids eating a snack where it was like a piece of celery with cream cheese and then raisins all down it. I think it was called bugs on a log, and yeah just having some flashbacks. Comment if this was a part of your childhood too because I can't be the only one. The first step in this experimental process is to prepare the celery by adding it into a pot of water and bring it to a boil. This has turned into a proper cooking show now. Hold on actually, I have something. I don't know why I have this, but there we go. That's better. It's like celery soup. It actually smells pretty good. Now we add in some washing soda, which is a cleaning material also known as sodium carbonate, and apparently it's toxic, so okay never mind. It's not edible anymore. Our celery soup dreams are over. So now I'm gonna cover it and let it simmer for a while, and I'm hoping this causes the celery to become very soft and almost disintegrate. So if it works, we'll find out. I'll check back with you soon. Oh yeah, it worked. Look how mushy it is now. It just falls apart. Also it's hot. Ow. But that means that it's ready for the next step, so it's time to turn it into pulp. In order to make paper, you need some good pulp that's made of fibers, so you just mix some celery with water, blend it, strain it, and you're left with this delicious green mush. It honestly looks like algae in a pond. It smells like celery, and oh, oh, oh, I forgot there was that chemical wash stuff in it. Okay, it doesn't taste just like celery. Thankfully, it's not toxic in small amounts, so all right, let's just get back on track here. We are on to the final stage of our celery papermaking adventure, and it's time to, well, make the actual paper. If you've seen my other DIY papermaking video, this process will be pretty familiar, but if you're new here, welcome aboard. Glad to have you, and here is how this process works. You start by mixing the pulp into a container of water, then use this tool called a deckle and mold, which I just made from two thrift store frames and some mesh. You sandwich them together and lower them in, swish it around a bit, then lift it up and out of the water, take away the deckle, and lay the mold part, paper side down, onto a towel or scrap piece of fabric. Next, using a sponge, soak up all the excess water by pressing firmly through the mesh part. And now, for the moment of truth, whoa, nice! Our first piece of celery paper. I hung it up to dry, and then kept production rolling. In total, I was able to make four sheets of paper, and everything was going great until, dang it, uh, things are not going as I thought they would. The sheets of paper are dry, which is good, but they are so incredibly thin. Look at that. I mean, is it a failure? I did make paper out of celery, but this is more like tissue paper. Ah, no. Ah, well, this is all part of the experiment process. Even squished all together, it wouldn't even make one nice sheet of paper. It's just so thin, but I do love the look of it. I think the texture is really neat, but definitely not what I was hoping for. Let's move on to experiment number two, and hopefully this one turns out good. The other day, while out for a run, I saw all these fallen leaves on the side of the road, and that got me wondering if they had paper potential. Well, I decided to find out, so I collected a bunch into my pack, and that brings us to here. I'm going to see if I can make paper out of leaves. I started by separating out the stems, so it would just be the nice leaf fibers. Then, I basically just did the same process as before. Leaf stew this time. Yummy. Did I put on the chef hat again? No. That'd be ridiculous and rip. Once I made the pulp, I got to it and formed the first sheet of paper. This process is honestly so relaxing and satisfying, you gotta try it out. Oh yeah. Dang, look how cool this looks. The texture is almost like stone or something. Oh, I'm excited. The excitement level stayed high as I made a few more, and then they peeled off so nicely from the fabric. Way less of a struggle than the celery paper. Speaking of leaves, you know the top spiky part of a pineapple? Usually it just goes, boom, right into the compost and doesn't really have a use. Well, it was my next test subject, and it turned into this. These ones got a bit ripped, but this one's pretty dang perfect. And then the other one I made is more of your classic traditional DIY paper using junk mail and newspapers. It's also a great way to repurpose old homework. So now that we've got all of our different types of paper, it's finally time for the ultimate test, the ultra thin celery paper. I'm going to save though for a surprise project that's coming up. For the first test, I grabbed a variety of writing tools to see how the different papers would do, and it didn't start off too strong. Oh, ripped it a bit already. Oh, that's smooth. That one's so good. Oh, this one too. Oh, more ripped. But after testing the markers, a crayon, pencil, and a pen, the results of the competition were pretty clear. The leaf paper is definitely not ideal for writing or drawing on. The pineapple spiky top one was surprisingly good, and I think the best is your traditional DIY paper. But that could all change here as test number two was to print a photo onto each one. I found the easiest way to do this is to just tape it onto a standard sheet of printer paper, make sure it's all nice and flat, then just load her in and print. Okay, and then you just carefully peel it off away from the tape, and you can reuse this, and then, oh upside down, there we go, our first print. I did get carried away a bit and made a And I was surprisingly impressed. Oh, it's not as clear as the other one, but I really like it. Like the texture came out really nice. This is the photo that I took from our Yosemite trip, and boom, there it is printed on the leaf paper. Let me know what you think of that one. When it came to the pineapple paper, my printer was not too happy. Uh-oh, uh, got a paper jam. Oh no. Okay, let's try that again. Another photo from our Cali road trip. This is Big Sur, such an epic place. I could spend multiple days probably just trying different print methods and seeing what photos and which colors show up better, but I'll have to save that for another time. Here's the final print results. Oh, and also here's how a framed one looks. This paper making adventure has been pretty fun, but honestly, paper is just a material that really becomes special once you actually turn it into something. So it's time to finally put this thin celery paper to use. I'm thinking it would be really cool to try to turn it into a lamp, so that's what I'm going to try to make. I started with a scrap piece of wood and cut it down into a square shape for the base. For the lampshade, I borrowed these wooden skewers from the kitchen, cut the pokey tips off, and then cut them in half, which was way more hectic than I thought it would be. They were just like projectiles flying around the studio. Next, I used hot glue to attach the skewers together and created this square frame. This final part was by far the trickiest. Using glue, I very carefully and slowly stuck the celery paper onto all the sides. I definitely almost ripped it a few times and it took so long, but finally it was done. And I say finally because it's 10 33 p.m. and I've been working on this for a while now. I added the finishing touches to the And voila! What was once just a failed DIY paper experiment is now this really neat lamp. Look at it! Dang! That's my new favorite accidental project. And finally, I can sleep peacefully tonight because I've now answered that question of what other materials can be made into paper. So thanks for coming on this adventure with me and I'll see you next time.