Paste paper endpapers from kitchen ingredients

Endpapers are the sheets that join the pages of a hard-cover book to its covers, and they are a chance to add colour. You can buy decorated paper, but making your own paste paper is much more fun. It uses ingredients from the kitchen cupboard and a few household objects as tools.

The paste

I make a simple flour paste:

• Two tablespoons of plain flour.
• About 250 millilitres of cold water.

Whisk the flour into the water in a small pan until smooth, then heat gently, stirring constantly. After a few minutes it thickens into a translucent paste, roughly the consistency of custard. Take it off the heat and let it cool completely. If there are lumps, push it through a sieve.

Some people use rice flour or wheat starch, which give a smoother, clearer paste. Ordinary flour works fine for a first try.

Adding colour

Divide the cooled paste into small jars and stir a little acrylic or gouache paint into each. Start with a small amount and add more until you like the colour. The paste should still be fairly thick. I like two or three related colours, for example a deep blue, a lighter grey-blue and an ochre.

The paper

Choose a reasonably strong paper that will not fall apart when wet, such as a medium-weight drawing paper. Make sure you know the grain direction so the finished sheets can be used in a book. I mark it on the back with a pencil arrow.

Lightly dampen the paper with a sponge before applying paste. This helps it lie flat and gives the paste a little more working time.

Making patterns

Brush the coloured paste evenly over the whole sheet with a wide brush. Then make marks in it while it is still wet. My favourite tools so far:

• A homemade comb: a strip of thick card with notches cut along one edge.
• The end of a pencil or chopstick, for drawing lines and spirals.
• A fork, for fine wavy lines.
• A bottle cap or cork, pressed and lifted for circles.
• A crumpled piece of plastic film, dabbed for texture.

Each tool pushes the paste aside and reveals the paper underneath, creating patterns. If you do not like the result, just brush over it and start again. That forgiving quality is what makes paste paper so relaxing.

Drying

Lay the sheets flat on newspaper or hang them on a line to dry. They will curl as they dry. Once fully dry, place them between clean sheets of paper under a pile of books overnight and they will flatten out.

Using them

When dry, paste papers are surprisingly durable. I use them for endpapers in case bindings, for covering boards on small notebooks, and for wrapping small gifts. The slight sheen of the paste gives them a soft, almost leathery look.

Cleaning up

Everything washes off with warm water. I wear an old shirt, cover the table with a plastic cloth, and keep a damp towel nearby. The kitchen will look like a small art studio for an afternoon, and you will end up with a stack of one-of-a-kind papers that nobody else has.