Mother's Day Gift: DIY Plantable Flower Paper

My amazing sister in law sent me these pictures of a project that she made with her kindergarten class to give as Mother's Day gifts this year.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea.  Basically, you will be making your own "paper" with your child(ren) and then sprinkling it with flower seeds.  Children can give the paper as a gift to their moms, grandma's, aunts, teachers, etc. and then they can plant the paper and watch the seeds grow into flowers!   Isn't that a great idea?!?

What You Need:

*A screen or wire strainer

*newspaper

*blender

*recycled colored paper or construction paper

*flower seeds

*a tub/bucket (or use your sink)

Ready to get started?  

Have your child shred the recycled paper and soak in a bucket of water for at least 30 minutes (or even overnight).

Once your paper has soaked, blend the paper with some water.  Start with a small amount of water and add more as necessary.  You'll be pressing out the water in the next step, so don't worry if you end up with a bit too much water.

Place the screen over a tub (or the sink) and pour the blended paper on top.  Using your fingers, press out the remaining water.

Once the water is strained, you will be left with a blob of paper like this ^^  Since you won't be using this as "writing" paper, but rather to plant, it does not need to be super thin.  A flat-ish blob is fine :)

You can now lay your "paper" out onto some old newspaper to dry.  While it is STILL WET, sprinkle seeds over the wet paper.  

Allow to dry completely.

   

When you give the seeded paper as a gift, you will want to leave a note to the recipient letting them know that they need to plant the paper in soil and water daily for their flowers to grow!  Here are two  cute little poems/sayings that you can include with your plantable paper.  The one on the left is on a crumpled brown paper bag; just change the wording to "mothers" for a mom.

Don't forget, this is also a great project for teacher appreciation week!

Looking for more Mother's Day ideas?

Check out my Canvas Handprint Garden (this one is great for grandma's, too)

and

My frugal Dollar-Store Framed Handprint Flower.

Both are great for Mother's Day!  Enjoy!