Best Paper for Hammering 🌿

Let’s start from the purpose of the paper. When you hammer flowers, the paper needs to absorb the pigments and hold onto them. That means it should be a little porous. Laminated sheets, super-smooth surfaces, or paper that’s already coated with something won’t work — the colors will just sit on top or wipe off.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Printer paper (75–90 gsm / ~20 lb) → too thin, tears and gets soggy.
• Cardstock (110 lb / ~200–220 gsm) → works well, especially with small botanicals that don’t carry much moisture.
• Watercolor paper (140 lb / ~300 gsm) → my all-time favorite. It’s sturdy, absorbent, and holds both the hammering and the drying process beautifully.

🌸 New favorite discovery: handmade paper!
This one is a little time-consuming but so worth it. I had a pile of watercolor paper scraps and just couldn’t throw them away. So I tried making my own paper from the leftovers.

Here’s what I did (super simple, not an expert at all!):

1. Shredded the watercolor scraps.
2. Soaked them in hot water to soften.
3. Blended them in a kitchen blender into pulp.
4. Mixed with more water and strained through a mesh frame.
5. Flipped the sheet onto fabric and dried it outside in the sun.

And it worked! ✨ The result was rustic and beautifully uneven — but smooth enough to hammer flowers on. Even better, it absorbed pigments like magic and held colors brighter for longer than store-bought paper. I have no idea why (the composition was the same as the scraps I used), but the texture is definitely different.

So if you’re up for some experimenting, try making your own paper! It’s fun, sustainable, and gives your hammered prints an authentic, handmade look.