DIY Faux Rice Paper Tutorial - Easy!!!

hello everyone it's natasha from

treasure books in this video we're

making faux rice paper

and let me tell you it's very easy to do

and extremely satisfying i saw a video

on this technique a few months ago on

facebook i'll have to dig it up and and

share it in the description box below

but ever since seeing that video i've

experimented with using different types

of materials and different techniques

and all that sort of stuff so in this

video we're going to talk about

materials you need the techniques that

you can use some of the variations on

the projects that you can do and then of

course at the end we're going to talk

about

what can you actually do with this all

right let's get started but before we

get started and in case if you're

wondering

these are quite durable

i mean they're not

indestructible

but they are definitely as durable as

paper

and they actually look very fragile but

they are definitely tougher than they

seem

you can rip it but you know it's quite

sturdy see

quite sturdy let's start with all the

materials that you can use so the first

most obvious one is napkins don't worry

if you don't have any napkins because

there are other things that we can use

you only need one ply of the napkins so

you would separate those flies and then

of course as i've got here you can use

this blank side as well and in a lot of

the cases this actually produces an even

better result i'll show you in a moment

you might also use some paper roll like

this it doesn't even have to be you know

i mean this one is quite thick but it

would still work i think i haven't tried

it i have tried other things but why not

give that a go as well when it comes to

napkins

this is how they look and there is one

thing that i have realized and that is

the more white in the napkin the better

the result so this one here you can see

it's very

dark see it's not very sheer like you

can't really tell that this is the

technique i use look at this i love it

but then on this one here it really

looks like actual rice paper look at

that

so the more white in the napkin the

better

and even just using this all white gives

you a really beautiful result i'll show

you look at this this is just all white

and these as well these are the other

plies that i used in a napkin and

sometimes when you peel off that ply

will have a little bit of the print left

on it so that's what happened here and

the reason why it's colored brown is

because i used a bit of coffee in my

glue solution i'll show you all of that

in a moment this one here is just no

coffee in the glue solution just glue

and then this one here as well so that's

the napkin ones and we will have a play

with napkins in a moment another thing

that you can use is just tissue paper so

this is the tissue paper that i use on

this one here and just plain glue no

coffee additive solution i think i

really like that coffee added to the

solution we'll talk about that next so

this is just some tissue paper from a

shoe box right when i got shoes and then

i scrunch it up even more

and i use that this also here is

slightly better quality tissue paper and

i find that the thinner the tissue paper

the better

for this project right because this is

you can't really even see that much has

happened on here

there's really not that much difference

in the one that i have applied the glue

to so if you can get your hands on some

really thin tissue paper

any material that's really thin it works

perfect for this project another thing

that i've used and i love love love the

effect is this sewing pattern paper it's

pretty much just tissue paper but it's

very thin and very pliable and the

effect it produced is just

outstanding i absolutely love the look

of this look at it

sheer underneath

see it's got the crinkle it's got the

sound it's got the texture it's just

absolutely beautiful so if you have some

of this go for it uh or otherwise just

you know really think tissue paper

another thing that i have used is

cheesecloth and this is not very good

cheesecloth at all as you can see it's

very thinly woven i guess

and it's perfect for this project so

basically produces almost like a

skin i guess you can say look at that

it has

substance to it look at it it's like

leather almost not as thick as leather

but like a skin

i just love how this turned out and i

have done another little variation of

this

which i'm going to show you later on in

the video so these are sort of the main

things that i've thought of using so far

so in this tutorial i'm going to use the

cheesecloth the tissue paper and the

napkin so if you have any one of these

in your possession you can get started

right away so the very first thing we

need to do is the glue solution this is

really quite simple all you need is pva

glue or school glue almost glue cheap

white glue right nothing special you

want you need it to be really really

runny the way you make it really runny

is to add water to it or what i'm going

to do is add this coffee into it instead

of water you can add perhaps some

water mixed with brown acrylic paint or

even watercolor i've also done that and

i want to show you this napkin here is

done with brown watercolor and this one

here is done with the coffee so really

if you don't want the coffee if you're

not a fan of the coffee smell then there

are ways okay or just do clear water i'm

doing coffee so basically what you want

to do is use some type of a something

plastic container and you want

two-thirds glue in there you don't have

to measure anything just you know

just approximately

so that's about you know when i

tilt it like this it looks like a lot

more but that's about two-thirds glue in

there and then we're adding one part

water

or in this case we're adding one part

coffee so now i'm just gonna close it

and i think my coffee solution might be

a little bit too strong

so it'll be quite brown but that's okay

and now i just cover it with some type

of a rag and shake

mix it up the only reason why i cover it

with this rag is because it sometimes it

can

leak on the sides all right let's see

what we have

there's my solution it's quite brown

and you know if you're doing a solution

with coffee you might want to use it all

up

rather quickly you don't want to leave

it sitting in there for a month because

it's going to go bad if you just mix

water and glue then in my case i found

that it can just sit in there forever

and not get not you know go bad because

pva glue is water-based glue so there's

water already in there but there's no

coffee in there so if you had coffee

it's gonna go bad all right so that's

the solution and basically look at it

it's like you know it's quite runny

and that's what you want next thing you

need is a plastic bag or some type of a

non-stick surface

what i'm using here is a cereal bag or a

cereal box liner that i've opened up and

i've made lots of projects using these

so i have lots of them on hand

if you don't happen to have those you

can just go ahead and just use

any plastic bag that you have at home

right next thing we want to do so i'm

going to start off with the napkin and

firstly i just need to remove

you know i just want one ply i want that

really really thin so i'm only using one

ply i want to apply glue first

underneath the napkin and then on top of

the napkin so in order to know how large

my napkin is on my surface i'm just

going to mark

just the corners

and then you can see i have my corners

marked so now i need my glue solution

i'm going to explain in a moment why i'm

doing this but

now i just want to apply

glue on that whole surface

the reason why we're doing this even

though the glue is going to seep if you

put the napkin on top of the bag and go

over it with glue the glue will seep

through underneath so you might be

wondering why would you be applying the

glue

first the reason why is because we in

order to make that faux rice paper

sturdy

we need that glue so the glue is there

the glue almost becomes like a plastic

right when it dries so when you have a

thick layer of glue on top and some glue

underneath as well it all helps with

that sturdiness right all right so

here's my napkin and now what i want to

do is i'm just going to fold it a little

bit like this this holding that like

this helps me set it down without it

being messed up too much so now i'm

going gonna set it down like this

now i know some people might want to eye

in this napkin first i really don't want

to bother with that but i don't like

having these straight lines in there so

as i'm holding it up i'm trying to kind

of get rid of the straight lines

and here's my napkin down it's kind of

laying up a little bit here so i might

maybe just pick it up a little bit now

personally i love creases and you know

the more creases there are in my opinion

the better

so you can look at these creases

so i'm not avoiding creases in fact i

want to create as much as i can so now

i'm just going to tap it down a little

bit there's that glue that's grabbing

onto the napkin straight away and now

i'm simply going to brush glue over all

over this whole thing i'm starting

somewhere in the middle

and just with the gentle hand

brushing towards the outside

the napkin will start to tear if your

brush is dry if there's not enough glue

on the brush that's gliding through

also the napkin will tear if your glue

is too gooey if it's not runny enough so

that's why you know adding that water in

there really helps this whole process it

just makes it so quick and easy

and you can see like i add glue and as

soon as i feel like my

brush is starting to drag like it's

getting dry i add more glue so

we do use quite a bit of this solution

and of course another thing if you don't

like the smell of coffee of course you

can use tea as well i didn't mention tea

before acrylic paint black tea

watercolors all of that will do all

right here we go that's all completely

covered and now once this is dry we're

going to peel it off and i'm going to

show you that as well how to do it but

what i found is that at this point

there is one little step that we can

take to make the peeling easier later on

when this is dry so if you look at this

here my edges are straight at this point

if we just simply move these edges in a

little bit and create that kind of a

scrunched up thing there all around it

makes the peeling much easier and the

chance of tearing a lot less so what i

do i just kind of go in with my brush

just like this

let's get you closer so here is my

straight edge here which might be a

little bit difficult to peel off later

on when everything is dry and all i do

is just this just move it in a little

bit like that and it also creates a

really nice kind of

vintagey old scroll looking type of an

effect so i'll show you the difference

now because i didn't work it out until

i've done a few of these this is the

straight edge one

and then this is the one where i

scrunched up those edges

and in my opinion it just looks so much

better

as opposed to this straight edge kind of

a look

all right so this one's all done look at

those edges love it and now i'm gonna

pop this aside let it dry usually i'll

leave it on overnight all right let's

move on now that you know how it's done

i'm gonna speed up the rest of this

process so the next thing i'm going to

use is tissue paper and i really like as

i said before

i love the crinkle so i'm going to

scrunch up that tissue paper first to

get all as much you know

wrinkling as i can and then follow the

exact same procedure

uh how satisfying is this especially

when it's speeded up it looks like magic

i forgot to mention if you get a tear in

a napkin because napkins are very thin

it can very well happen and it has

happened to me and i was able to salvage

it so basically what i did just like as

i was doing with the edges before and

like i'm going to do now i did it to the

napkin let's say there's a tear here i

just kind of smooshed it all together

that tear smashed it all together popped

the

glue on you know that did that kind of

thing and then when it was dry it was

perfect i'm gonna leave this one to dry

and the next one i'm going to do just

half of the napkin so i can fit both in

here and the cheesecloth so

i'm going to make a deliberate tear in

here to show you how to repair it oh it

pains me to do this but let's do

a tear so i went over that spot one too

many times right and now i have a tear

in there you can see

look at that tear so what i would do but

now i'm gently trying to you know

depending on how large the tear is if

it's a little tear you can bring

napkin from the surrounding area to the

tear to cover it up like that but i did

make that take quite large so i might

need to add

a tiny little bit of napkin over the top

which will be visible when it dries i

just want to check i have covered the

tear and the more i kind of fiddle with

it and play around with it the more you

know things go wrong but

that's the tear right so once that's dry

it's going to be completely you know

glued together i want to see if i can

show you the one that it actually

happened on i was looking for a tear and

i just have to show you look how cool

this looks when i turn it towards the

light

oh it's just so incredibly satisfying

look at it

okay i think i found the one that had

the tear i don't even know if you can

see it on here so i might have to turn

it towards the light my point is

that if you get a tear you can fix it up

and then the glue here you can see it in

the light this way and then the glue

holds it all together so anyway

let's move on to cheesecloth now

cheesecloth it requires a little bit

more glue because it starts to seep into

these little spaces

so i'm going to pop it down and you can

see straight away because you know it's

not thin like napkins so it's not really

soaking up all that glue right away and

now same thing you know i start applying

the glue and i try not to move

that cheesecloth too much right

you can just leave it as this let it dry

like this or

i'm gonna do this to the edges because i

want to have a nice neat look to this i

want it to look like pepperous or

something you know i just want it to

look good so i'm just going to do this

to the edges

it looks like an old map if you you can

imagine a map printed on there or drawn

hand drawn you know

you know those maps treasure maps all

right so that's i'm going to leave that

as it is and i'm going to let this join

the others in its drying time oh i

didn't do these edges here it just looks

better with those edges does it not all

right now i'm going to let this dry and

i already have some dried ones because i

was well prepared so i'm now i'm going

to show you how to actually peel it off

okay here is one that i did last night

and this one is now completely dry and

i'm going to show you how to peel it off

so i do have to admit

that the peeling is so much easier when

you do that to the edges

when you scratch them up like that it's

very very easy to pick it up and to

start peeling so this this one's going

to be easy i can even just use my

finger because

those sides are already scrunched up and

they're easily coming off just like that

but previously when i didn't do that to

my

sides or edges i should say i used an

x-acto knife to do this and you know cut

that kind of glue off there at the edge

i hope that's making sense once that

whole side is lifted like this you can

just very easily peel it off i'm going

to zoom out so you can see there we go

and it's just easy you just

so satisfactory you just peel that whole

thing right off

i'm going to show you these the glue

there but

you don't have to throw this away you

can just keep reusing this so now you've

seen as we are peeling this off you can

see all of these little bits of glue

it's almost like a plastic bag that is

now sealing both top and bottom of our

napkin so i just kind of pick it off

and it is in fact the glue that's making

this so you know

amazing

so sturdy and pliable and and

durable you can still rip this so it's

not that durable i have tried one of

them and yes definitely you can still

rip it just like you can rip rice paper

so here it is

absolutely beautiful and one thing to

note is you will have the top side that

you've done look at these beautiful

creases it's gonna feel rough and it's

gonna have a lot of texture and the

bottom side is because it was drying

against plastic it's gonna look

plasticky like this and another question

that you may or may not have is well

that was a question that i was wondering

in my head if you leave it folded like

this if it's sitting in a journal for

example against other pages is this glue

in any way going to activate and glue

itself to other things or to itself so

what i did as an experiment i saw the

video that i mentioned about

four or five months ago i'm not sure and

that's when i did this one i did it

straight away so what i did it's exactly

the same method exactly the same only i

used clear glue i didn't use any coffee

in it and what i did is i folded it and

left it under heavy books to see if it's

gonna glue itself to itself right and

we've been through summer and it's been

hot and it's been humid and all sorts of

things and

it is not so that is one less thing to

worry about oh i have to say perhaps

i know that mod podge sometimes can be

very sticky so i'm not sure if you're

using mod podge maybe do a little

experiment first all right so that's

that one i want to show you this one

next because i didn't scrunch up the

sides on this one so you can see

when i go to pick it up like how am i

going to do oh it's

okay it's coming off easy but you know i

have had issues with napkins and it

definitely wasn't coming up easy

so let's say this one's coming up easy

and okay it's feeling easy all right

it's feeling easier than the napkin

would if it's this easy for you perfect

it's what you want well here it's

starting to rip look at that so here we

go so you just kind of

oh just

i was looking at my phone and not at the

at the project

and then you know you're just very

gently lifting this up

it most definitely can get frustrating

and tedious which is why

i started scrunching up the sides

because it was just this whole thing of

peeling it after all that work involved

and then you have to do this

and it was just annoying me so much

and i thought if i experiment with those

sides and scrunching everything up i

want wonder if it's going to be easier

and sure enough

that solves that problem

but this is i guess just to demonstrate

that it can be done

as annoying as it is

and then you will just start

once the whole one side is lifted you

can just peel to the side

we want things to be easy and quick so

there's that glue

just get rid of all of that what is it

about us humans i don't know if it's

humans in general or just us crafters

but why do we love this

so much

like what is it with the crinkle and

with the sound and with the shear and

why do you love it so much maybe it's

just me

but i don't think it's just me

so there's that one that's that shiny

side and that matte side

and one last one i want to show you is

the cheesecloth one so let me just say

that previously when i was experimenting

i have to say

i made this one years ago years ago and

i didn't even glue it onto cereal

liner i actually glued it onto really

shiny book you know how some books have

that shine i think it even might have

been this one

and i just glued it on there and then

peeled it right off anyway i'm getting

sidetracked so basically uh you can see

that the edges here i really didn't like

how you can see this glue and then you

have these strings hanging about this to

me looks much nicer when those edges are

scrunched this one i've done recently

just a few days ago it didn't scrunch up

the edges and yeah you can definitely

tell

a difference between this one and this

one here anyway stop blubbering let's

start peeling oh look how easy this is

gonna be just pick it up

and now it's not gonna be oh maybe it is

pick it up

and peel right off

who here

thinks this is not satisfactory lift

your hands up oh here i think this is

not i mean i can't see your hands but

check it out i believe there are no

hands rising up because how can you look

at this and not think it's simply i

don't know let's see what happens what

would happen if i scrunch it up i

haven't tried it

am i going to ruin it

i hope not did i ruin it no

i mean nothing really happened it's just

crunched up i don't know what i thought

would happen some type of

magic i think i like the better not

scrunched up but here we go that's the

cheesecloth one

so now i just wanted to show you some

variations and then we'll move on to

maybe some project ideas what can you

actually do with this thing so it's all

about experimentation right just like

what i did now it's crunching it up

oftentimes when you think what would

happen if i do this you come up with new

ideas so that's what happened when i did

this one here so basically all i did

here is i put down my napkin just as i

did on this one that i just did now

that's still drying i put down my napkin

and then instead of putting the

cheesecloth separately i put the

cheesecloth right on top of the napkin

and this is the result so i have two

sides i have that

napkin side

and it looks like plastic because one

it's got glue too it was drying against

the plastic bag and i think this looks

like i might have used some watercolors

i know honestly the coffee effect looks

so much better in my opinion and this is

the

cheesecloth side very texturey and

you know feels completely different to

this side and with this type of thing i

mean you know there's just so many

things that we can do with this this

alone can even be a really cool journal

cover

and not to mention pages in a journal

cutting off little bits and making some

embellishments with it

making envelopes solar pouches

little bags all that sort of stuff so i

at this point i'm just enjoying it as it

is without actually making something out

of it even though i have already made

some things okay another thing that you

can do which is what i've done here is

once you glue that napkin on instead of

peeling it off

leave it on the bag which is what

happened here i just left it on there

and i use my x-acto knife and i cut

those edges and it looks

just like this so the only thing with

this type of thing is now of course you

you are able to go and peel this off

because that's what we've done with all

of these and you saw how easy it is to

fill them up this one's got straight

edges so it might be a little bit

difficult to go ahead and peel but

you know you can go ahead and make

anything out of this and especially if

you're going to sew around then you're

sealing those edges and the napkin is

not going to peel so that's another

thing you can play around with

and that's what i've actually done on

this one here i had to double check

because i wasn't sure i left it

the the napkin right this is acrylic

paint that i used with the glue

love the rusty look of this and

basically i didn't peel it off i left it

on the plastic bag cut it out and i made

this

little envelope

bag pouch it's very sturdy because it's

actual plastic inside and it's been sewn

around

so if you're not sewing it around you

know it's gonna peel and generally

gluing plastic to plastic

like if you were to glue this instead of

so i don't know i don't i don't really

trust any glue on plastic i'm not sure

actually

i shouldn't really say that because this

is a pretty good good glue so perhaps

this one would glue plastic to plastic

but it's also quite

on the dearest side of the pricing range

and then i made some other things i've

popped them on book pages you know this

is just going some extra steps and i

made some journaling spots and stuff

like that but i wanted to see if maybe i

can make something with these that i

made today there's a part of me that

feels quite

bad about hacking into this in any sort

of way because i love it so much a part

of me doesn't want to use it

apart from this one this one i'm not a

fan of because you can't really see it's

not really you can't really see anything

on that one just looks like napkin but

i'm gonna go ahead and perhaps i don't

know maybe i can think of something to

make out of these i feel like these

would make really good glassine bags and

blasting bags is something that i always

want and i can never find here in

australia so

i often times make my own it is

something that we can make out of this

i'm kind of thinking on the fly here so

i had that map kind of an idea in my

mind so maybe something like this

putting it over the top of a some sort

of of a map and making a little

something out of that even this cheese

cloth i i don't know

i have no goal in mind so basically so

far what i've done is i sandwiched

that map piece between

the rice paper for rice paper and some

tea dyke paper

so i'm just kind of going with it you

know

not planned anything

i don't even know if it's going to work

out but

anyway

and now i'm going to actually try and

rip the rice paper i want to see how

easy it actually rips so here we go

as easy as it is to rip paper pretty

much

which is to be expected

i mean if i really wanted to do this

particular thing that i'm doing then i

could have really just glued the napkin

straight onto the

the mac piece so really i don't know i

just had a map in my mind and i wanted

to try it out and now i can make this

perhaps into some type of like a scroll

thing a scrolly map kind of thing or i

would simply have it as a page in a

journal that's what i would do

and in all honesty i'm inclined to have

most of these as a page in a journal if

you could only

sort of feel that texture

there we go all right let's do something

with just this so now that i have one

uneven edge here i kind of want to do

the same over here so i'm just going to

try and

get that uneven edge happening

this looks cool look at this i messed up

a little bit here but that's okay the

whole thing is wonky and uneven edges

and kind of wiggly sowing and it just

look at it it looks almost like an onion

skin like actual onion skin

you know it's very mysterious kind of

looking like if you

got this in one of your journals and you

haven't seen a video you would be

thinking what is this what is this made

out of look at it

if you were to pop some ephemera in

there oh look at this

so cool

maybe have a little something up there

as a closure but i'm just going to put

it in here for now

i like this image so a little package in

a journal something like this

you know clipped on the side of the page

maybe that doesn't even have to have a

flap it can just be like this like a

little glassine bag

all wrapped with a little bit of twine

just like that

look i don't know man i just

love this

a lot more than i

would have expected

and then it's oh you know if i got this

in a journal it's just

imagine making a little package of all

things this type of thing i do have to

say because i've used that coffee

solution i can really smell coffee so

that's a thing to consider oh how i wish

i can hear all of your ideas right now i

bet you have so many

flowing through your mind of all of the

different things that we can do with

this rice paper business

these are of course all ideas that take

time to

you know be realized i'm kind of working

on the fly now just to get your creative

juices going and i know that they

already are i am inclined to really use

these as i've already said as pages in

generals but you know this whole look i

mean if you're making a little pack you

can have a theme going it's perfect

which is what i'm kind of making here i

know that this vintagey feel is not

everyone's vibe but i am most definitely

feeling it today

so as you can see i'm using that cheese

cloth as a cover here it's only a little

mini booklet it's not an actual

three signature journal of course i

wouldn't be able to use it for that kind

of thing

and initially i was thinking of sewing

an image onto the actual juice cloth i'm

not a fan of the cream of the you know

how i scrunched it up it doesn't matter

but i thought it would be nicer to have

that image underneath a little grungy

notebook on the fly i'm gonna open up

this oh it's open here the envelope is

open here i was gonna open it here but

there's no point because it's open there

so we're just leaving it as it is

and you know all that fun embellishing

that can be done in there at another

time maybe it'll be nice to have a twine

closure over here

now that i'm starting to get in the zone

i'm getting so many ideas now all of the

things that i can do but my battery is

running low so i'm gonna have to speed

it up a little bit i'm loving this so

far just i just love it so much look at

these two together it's perfection i

love this look okay i'll stop now so

what do you think what are your thoughts

even this so i should have should have

actually bound this in

here as a page oh well doesn't matter

and look how good this looks with this

kind of a theme that i've got happening

over here it's just so good so what i'm

thinking now is that making things with

our full rice paper could be a whole

separate video right

there are so many ways that this can

take us and all these sorts of

variations that we can do and it is

definitely something that i'm going to

ponder because now i have all of these

beautiful papers to use and i have to

say i'm inclined

to hold on to them for just a little bit

longer look at it

okay i need to stop saying that i think

you've seen

enough so far i hope that you are as

inspired and excited about this project

as i am if you have any questions please

let me know if you have any issues any

problems also let me know i think a lot

of the problems come up when we are

trying something for the first time and

that's the best way to learn so try it

out see how you go i will perhaps do

some more experimenting and see what

else we can do let me know what you

think what is your favorite one do you

like the printed napkins more or do you

like like a tissue paper i think they

all look great in any case thank you so

much for watching and i will see you in

my next video bye