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I bought some time ago a pack of white claylike modelling stuff. I noticed that its made out of paper and some kind of adhesive. Not real clay there? The things what I made out the stuff turned very good. Just wondering, I would want to know how to make that paper "clay" at home. 
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Hi ---so you want to make paper clay? why bother? its a very labour intensive process and in terms of time its worth your while to just buy the stuff and then just add water. Sure, if you want to be a purist and boil down paper, mulch it, then squeeze out every last bit of water, add lineseed oil, sawdust and chalk dust along with glue. It takes a long time and there's no guantee that the mixture will be durable (it takes a lot of time to come up with the precise mixture that works, not that it can't be done and there are some really good recipes on the net).
But with paperclay it never lets you down and its fast.
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For a basic paper clay recipe just google "paper clay" and you'll get many possibilities, all of which are basically the same. I prefer to make my own, it costs me nothing and have found a few things to make the proccess easier. I found that telephone book paper breaks down easily by boiling for 15-30 minutes. While the paper is still in the pot you used to boil it in, use a hand-held blender with the chopper attachment to complete the proccess. It turns into pulp in less than a minute. I then pour the mixture into a collander to drain, squeezing some excess water out by hand. The next step is to add binders. I use white glue and wallpaper paste. Good luck!
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If you want my advice there's nothing purist about making your own paper clay..its like saying why bother with recycling my empty bottles i can get new ones at the store..sheesh talk about killing the basic "idea&reason" behind making papermache..sure you can buy the stuff off store shelves but in my experience its not worth the price or lazyness : ) and it NEVER gives you the same result has a good papermache recipe will give , the bigest point being the one of durability and strenght.
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Very good point melf. I hate the 'why bother if you can buy it attitude' I grow organic veg and herbs and all people want to know is if it saves me money.
I currently have a bucket full of newspaper and water and giving the clay a go.
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It really isn't difficult making your own. Anyone who wants to learn, just read Melf's (Martin Favreau's) tutorial on this website.
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i was JUST about to ask the same thing on this forum! XD neat.
anyway, i googled some stuiff as suggested. most of it was for the product paper clay, and a lot about using paper IN clay, but with some searching i found a couple things:
http://www.papermachebrain.com/clay.html
http://www.planetpals.com/dryer_lint_crafts.html -- haven't tried this. might have some properties of paperclay
http://www2d.biglobe.ne.jp/~dhnoah/make_00.htm -- this project uses a sawdust mixture to make a papier mache like clay.
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I actually find making paper clay very 'no muss - no fuss' at all. It is almost as easy as going to the store to do it.
Where my boyfriend works they have a shredder there. It is an older shredder that shreds the paper they put into it pretty much to dust. He brings me the paper particles home and I just add some wallpaper paste, white glue and water to them and they make the most perfect clay.
I realize this might not help be helpful to everyone as they may or may not have access to a shredder that shreds so finely, but I thought I would mention it because it is not information that you can google for.
Or at least information I have ever found. The intructions I found always called for soaking the paper and it was such a headache. I was *so* happy when I found a way to just add glue to it.
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thanks Jen your links were helpful
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Anyone want to guess what is in the paperclay that these dealers are selling?
After seeing some of the small sculptures that people have made out of this material ,in my opinion the main ingredients are finely ground sawdust with wall paste.
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Anyone who wants to look into this further might be interested in the Masters thesis by Valarie Lyle on
http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/thes ... 1
132934/unrestricted/LyleV0822a.pdf
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I have never met up with a shredder that makes fine bits or powder.
If you could come up with a name I would appreciate it.
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Wish me luck. My husband is a math teacher, so I shredded up all of last year's old homework papers, and progress reports, and have embarked on making my first batch of paper clay. Yes I am using the recipie in the tutorials. (Thanx for that by the way.) I went to a furniture carving friend of mine and scrounged enough sawdust to overfill a 30 gallon can with a lid. I have 2 gallons of elmer's glue left over from a math project last year, and just got back from the store where I bought the coffee grinder and the linseed oil. I have some old sheetrock I am going to use a scraper on to make the gypsum powder, and I have some leftover spackle to mix in. I know it sounds like over kill, but hey, I won't use all the sawdust in one day. I am just confused about one passage in the recipie, so I am going to go the safe way on that one. It says that after you boil the paper, you drain it, and squeeze it, and the rub it into little pea sized wads with your hands to dry. What I am confused about is.... am I supposed to add the wallpaper paste to this before it dries, or is the paste you mean to be just the wet paper? I do not want 2 gallons of paper mache peas. I am guessing that you add the adhesives to the sawdust, chalk mix as well as the paper. I am also sort of guessing about how much mosture goes into the clay. I am guessing from the instructions that it is rather dry if it is really hard to mix. I was planning to use a paint mixer tool that attaches to my drill. I have latex gloves, if I needed to I could knead it by hand couldn't I? I noticed that the paper, when I put in on to soak tonight, really dried out my hands when I pushed it into the water.
I am hoping to make dolls from the mush. I am facinated with some of the darling suggestions I have read on the site. I am thinking that if I put each part of the doll on a thick peice of twine, I could make jointed arms and legs, and make "critters" as well as kids. I have never used pulp type paper mache' before. I guess I will be in for a long wait to see if it worked. I have never seen the hydro stone stuff you mentioned here at any hardware store. I guess mine will take a while to harden.
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Hi there
I'm a bit new to this thing. I've only worked with thin strips/small bits of paper before, but I wanted to put some mouldings on a box I've made. Would the paper clay be the best stuff to do this with? And if I make up a batch, how quickly do I have to use it?(it is only a small box). Is air-drying the best way to dry this
Also, could anyone ecommend any sources for history of papier mache?
Thanks a lot
Jacqueline 
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No, don't add the paste to the drying pulp. I squeeze mine into biscuit size pieces, lay them on open mesh metal and let them dry in the sun. When I want pulp, I break them into smaller pieces and blitz them in an old coffee grinder. This produces a flock like cotton lint. That, mixed with about half the weight of fine sawdust and, if wanted, plaster or ground chalk, is mixed to a thick modelling 'clay' with the traditional paste mix. It moulds well, sands well and dries reasonably quickly.
You probably guess that I work with relatively small amounts.
DavidO 
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