Tired of life in the city, we quit our jobs, sold our house, and relocated (along with our three dogs) to the blissful Orinoco Valley at the top of the South Island. We found a hundred year old cottage on a seven acre block, installed eight alpacas, three donkeys, rebuilt the dilapidated barn, and began making handmade paper.

Paper making uses a surprising amount of water, so we’re fortunate to have a reliable creek. The water used to make our paper is about as pure as it gets, and all the waste is returned to our garden, which is handy because it’s hot and dry here in summer.

We use age-old paper making techniques. The fibres come from plants, such as flax and dahlia, grown in our garden, and from weeds such as broom, doc, and nettles collected from around the valley. The plants are retted, boiled in a caustic solution (wood ash, soda ash or lye), hand washed, pulped in a hollander, and finally formed into sheets using a traditional deckle and mould. After drying and pressing we either turn the paper into craftwork, or sell the sheets to mixed media artists, scrapbookers, or the insanely curious.