Paper Making Gone Bad

We just finished studying ecology last week so this weekend we were at Walmart and my son Tyler (12) and I were really excited when we found a paper recycling kit on sale.  It was $17 for $7 and there were a bunch of them left. Little did I know!  It is called the Bill Nye Paper Recycling Factory and it looked like a really fun well made activity.  So... today I put it in one of his workboxes and he and I were both really interested in doing it together.  At lunch we ripped up a bunch of paper and soaked them in warm water according to the directions and let them sit for several hours.  The first part of the project was to mix the paper with a hand blender that comes in the kit.  We couldn't get that to turn at all so I used my kitchen blender.  Then we were supposed to fill the tray they provide to the fill line.  The problem with this was there is no fill line.  Both my husband and I looked for it and couldn't find it.  We did our best though and we were able to get the paper pulp on the screen and then on the drying cloths.  When we went to use the press from the kit to squeeze all the water out though the plastic bolt broke.  We did manage to get one piece of paper out of the whole mess.  It was so sad.  I have to give a lot of credit to Tyler.  He immediately started coming up with other ideas to use the pieces of the kit.  What a trooper!