Garlic paper

A couple of years ago I attended a week of paper making at Central Saint Martins art college.  I can't remember now if I started collecting my garlic skins before this or after, but I finally decided that this Easter I would try making paper out of them.

I do use a lot of garlic in my cooking but in two years I had only managed to collect about 2 1/2 oz.

They were all stuck in a saucepan with some water and washing soda and boiled for a bit - this removes all the waxes and oils and organic stuff which would affect my paper.

At the end of the process you have something that looks like this.  Very appetising!  But once it is mixed with some cotton fibre then you can see how beautiful it really is.  I love that you can see all the fibres.  'im outdoors said it looked like hair.
Sadly I didn't have much so couldn't make very much paper, but I've already started collecting my next batch, so give it another couple of years and I'll have another go.

Above you can see the difference between paper made from onion skins, leaves of an ornamental thistle and the garlic skins.