Homemade Plantable Seed Paper for Earth Day

Did you know you can make your own, homemade plantable seed paper? What a way to celebrate Earth Day! A perfect Spring activity for kids.

We make this homemade plantable seed paper for Earth Day and it feels like magic every time! Use construction paper, blend it with water, add some flower seeds and let dry! This is a great alternative to the Cheerios seed packets if you were excited about those! Check out detailed steps below.

Homemade plantable seed paper made to look like little earths, I saw this on Modern Parents Messy Kids and was obsessed! Not only were we able to discuss recycling and the importance of plants for our environment, but we actually got to plant something in the ground as well.

These will seem a bit complicated, but trust me they are not too challenging to make,  and are perfect for preschoolers as well as older kids to make.

What you need:

screen or fine mesh material

an old can

blue and green construction paper  (read here for info about composting paper! construction paper is a good choice – but avoid shiny paper for this)

blender

flower seeds

circle cookie cutter

tea towel or paper towel

What to Do

1.  Cut one piece of blue paper, and one piece of green paper into small pieces and place into separate bowls. My kids love cutting, it’s a great skill for young kids to use, and perfect!

 

2. Keeping the colors separated, cover the paper with warm water.

3. Let your paper soak for a couple of minutes and then put it in the blender, one color at a time. Liquefy the paper until you get a watery texture to. You may need to add more water to the blender to really get all of the paper to liquefy.

 4. Now you want to mix in your seeds. I separated the blue mixture into smaller bowls and added the flower seeds since we were making multiple types of paper. We have been studying butterflies and caterpillars so are planting butterfly weed, zinnias and hollyhock, which are all flowers that they like, for our outdoor butterfly garden.

 

5. Cut a square of screen material large enough to cover the can. (I’m sure a fine-mesh sieve would work as long as you could flatten it enough to make a flat circle) Place the screen over the top of the open can and secure it with a rubber band.

 

6. Place a circle cookie cutter on top of the screen (I only had a leftover egg cookie cutter that I bent into a circle). Spoon some of the blue mixture into the cookie cutter and press it, draining as much of the water as possible.

 

7. Once you have a blue circle, spoon bits of the green on top creating what resembles an earth, and press it again with the back of the spoon.

8. Transfer these to a plate lined with paper towels or a tea towel to dry. We also covered them with a towel and placed a heavy book on top so that they didn’t curl up around the edges.

 

9. Once they have dried completely you have little seed pods that you can save to plant later of plant now!

Like These? Check out the spin we put on them for DIY Mother’s Day gifts!

Celebrate Earth Day with These Activities

Read some Earth Day books.

Make an Earth Day sensory bin.

I can’t wait to watch our homemade plantable seed paper grow!