Seed Paper
When looking for a valentine’s craft for the girls to do I came across instructions for making seed paper. Making paper is a project I did when I was a kid in 4h and I thought adding seeds that they collected was a great way for the girls to personalize their valentines. I wish I would have taken more pictures during our project but I still want to share what we did incase it inspires someone else to try it too!
We started this project last summer (I just didn’t realize it at the time!). When selecting seeds for this project, you want seeds that are small and easy to germinate. The girls had collected bachelor button and nigella seeds that I thought would work well.
First the girls ripped and cut up paper. We just used computer paper and construction paper. Ally wanted purple and Julia wanted pink. We used 10 sheets of white paper and 2 sheets of colored paper for each kid. Then we covered the paper with water and let it sit for a few hours to soften the paper.
After the paper soaked for a few hours we processed it in a blender. After the paper was all broken down into a nice pulp we mixed in our seeds.
There are screens you can buy to make this easier but we just used what we had. This is where I had to help out a lot and didn’t think about getting pictures, so I apologize and will do my best to describe what we did. On top of a cookie sheet we laid out towels and paper towels. Then used a slotted spoon to scoop the pulp out of the bowl and on top of the paper towels. You do not want to squeeze the water out or your paper won’t stick together, but let the extra water drain out through the holes of the spoon. Once all of the pulp was on the towel, we spread it out with our fingers as evenly as possible. We made it 1/8-1/4” thick. You want it to be as thin as possible without getting holes in your paper. Then we laid towels/paper towels on top and placed another cookie sheet on top for a little weight. We let it sit for a few hours.
Next we removed all of the wet towels from the top and replaced it with dry ones. Then carefully used a rolling pin to squeeze out more water. Next, we took a cooling rack and placed it directly on top of the paper and flipped it over so the paper was now on the cooling rack and could dry completely. Remember, we want it to dry as fast as possible so the seeds don’t germinate.
After 24 hours it was completely dry and then we started making our cards! It was a little harder to cut than I expected (maybe I made it too thick) so I had to do the cutting. I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to trace hearts on the seed paper. You want to keep all of your scraps since they have seeds in them as well!
We just used double sided tape to tape the heart onto cardstock paper to make our cards. You can make them fancier, but I wanted the girls to be able to do as much of it themselves as possible! I look forward to planting some of our seed paper and watching it grow!
This was a fun project for the kids to do and they were excited to tell their family when they gave them their valentine’s that they could grow flowers with them! I would love to hear how it works out for you!