how to make seed packets from old book pages

Very early this month, our home eduction group held a Garden Swap. The idea is that everyone brings along something either from the garden or pertaining to the garden - you receive a token for every item you bring and in return you can take one item per token. As you can imagine there were a lot of different goodies to swap with……loads of potted plants of course and seedlings, fresh seeds and abundant vegetables from autumn harvests, jams, baked goods, garden magazines, big bags of seaweed and manure, even some kombucha starters. I brought home a few bags of the afore mentioned seaweed, some potted herbs, big bags of onions and two different jams, chosen by my children! To swap, I took along rhubarb, coriander seedlings and some fresh dill and chive seeds.

I may have mentioned that I have a tendency to do things at the last minute and the seed packets were no exception!! I realised very late (well, ok the day before but thats pretty last minute!) that I needed to put the seeds into small packets. Naturally I wanted something pretty but fairly quick to whip up and I came up with the idea of using old book pages which I have a lot of and a simple sketch to tizzy them up! The end result was a bunch of quirky little seed packs that looked cute as well as repurposing something that was no longer used.

In case you want to make some too, here are some step by step pictures which are mostly self explanatory. If I knew how, I'd add a link to a pdf doc with the pattern for you, but I've googled and it all seems a bit complicated for this time of night, so you'll have to make up your own. Its not hard!

I used a book that I picked up for free. Its written in Dutch so I can't read it but the cover will make another journal and the pages will get used up in all sorts of ways!  

It didn't take long to draw up a very simplistic dill seed head and then with just a teeny bit of watercolour they were transformed into a unique seed packet!

I put one heaped teaspoon of seed into each one and wrote the amount in small lettering on the back of the pack. They were stuck together with a glue stick.

While the paints were out, other artistic folk came along and had a painting spree too! 

I also made some coloured packets for chive seeds although I didn't like the end result as much but they did the job. A friend has a chive problem in her garden. Can you believe it? She has them popping up everywhere and they just keep self seeding, so we lopped all their lovely heads and I spent a few hours winnowing the seeds from the husks. 

By the time I'd huffed and puffed and blown all the husks out of the bowls, I was beginning to have some idea of how the wolf felt!! 

And just for fun, here are two creations made of pumpkins! There was a competition for best pumpkin sculpture and these were the two entries. I also wanted to take some photos of all the goodness that was there for swapping but I forgot and then it was all gone!! You'll have to take my word for it!!

Let me know if you think you may make your own seed packs. I think its something useful and arty all in one, and that suits me just fine!