Paper Making

Yesterday was a planned paper making day. During one of our last visits to Haymarket, Nina really wanted to do some exploring down in the woods, so my mom told her that we could come back on a day to go exploring in the woods for neat berries and flowers that we could use to make paper with. So, yesterday was our day to do that. The girls had a great time collecting neat things in the woods that we'd use to put in our paper.

After exploring in the woods, we headed back up to the house to start grinding up our berries and making the paper. We didn't forsee the trouble ahead...
We spread out the berries, and, using rocks they'd found in the stream, they mashed the berries, then we put the mashed berries into a blender with torn pieces of paper (As my Dad pointed out, we were making paper with paper? Yes, because we're working with toddlers), water, and some other things.
As we're putting the blended concauction onto the screen, things started to take a downward turn. I had felt a burning sensation on my hands but didn't really pay much attention to it. I had an itch on my neck that I scratched, then my whole neck was itching and burning. Lyla started crying and scratching and rubbing her arms, my mom's hands and part of her legs were itching and burning, and Nina (surprisingly) had no issues except little red blotches on her cheeks. Evidentally, we'd picked, crushed, and blended something we shouldn't have. It was quickly up to the bath to get all their clothes off and washed and their skin soapy and washed. After the bath, they felt much better.
Being the well-prepared mother that I am (as evidenced in other posts), I don't come with a back-up outfit, so while their clothes washed and dried, Lyla wore a make-shift tank top, and this is what Nina picked out to wear.

After our toxic paper experience, we decided to finish up our paper making with some good old berries from the grocery store. While it wasn't as "natural" as our other paper, it didn't leave us all itching and burning.

Here are our finished products - the natural, toxic paper that we didn't take home.

Our other paper made with berries from the store and flower petals from my mom's deck. Last night when I brought them in after completely drying, they look really neat. It was a fun experience for the girls (aside from the itching and burning skin), and a creative way to spend the morning.