As a newbie kindergarten mom, I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis the school put on their policy of no food for birthday and holiday celebrations. It was written in bold font in our Welcome to Kindergarten packet and highlighted before each and every holiday party. Naively, I thought this meant I was off the hook and didn’t need to send in anything extra with my daughter when it was her birthday.
Throughout the school year, though, goody bags started coming home filled with all sorts of little trinkets. You know the kind I’m talking about, right? Slap bracelets, a single balloon, a plastic slinky. Things that may be exciting for approximately 45 seconds after getting off the bus and then scattered like detritus around the house for the next 5 months. I realized these goody bags must be the answer to the ban on packages of cupcakes and specially made birthday cookies.
As my daughter’s birthday approached, she casually mentioned bringing in her own birthday treat bags. I inwardly cringed. I detest the thought of buying something that’s basically going to get thrown away. Let alone the idea of someone bringing in gifts for everyone else on her birthday.
But, I digress. I asked her what she wanted to bring in, assuming we would be making a trip to the party aisle at Walmart. I was floored when she stated that she wanted to bring in seeds for her friends to plant.
Bless her little heart!
I can definitely get on board with that idea. My mind started spinning as I thought about ways to bring that wish into reality.
We decided to go with distributing seed bombs that we could easily make ourselves. My thrifty heart beat fast; not only would we be saving money but we would also add less plastic to twenty households in the process. Hurray!
Here’s how we made our seed bombs:
Gather Paper
In the name of being frugal, we sorted through some paper scraps I had accumulated from my scrapbooking days. We looked for shades of blue and green since my daughter likes those colors. Once we had a decent pile, we started tearing. I’ve seen projects like this done with paper from a paper shredder and, if we had access to any, I think we would go that route next time. Tearing was fun…for the first five minutes.
Soak
We let the scraps soak in a large bowl of water overnight. We could have moved on to the next step after a couple of hours; however, this was a spur of the moment idea and we didn’t have our seeds yet.
Blend and drain
Blend small amounts of the torn paper with a blender or food processor. We had to add quite a bit of water to the blender to get things to actually blend. Make sure to drain off as much water as you can when you’re done blending. The seed balls need to be damp enough so they stay together; yet not too wet or it could affect the germination of the seed.
Add seeds
Last summer my daughter learned a lot about butterflies and that interest has stayed with her. She wanted to include seeds that are good for butterflies and bees so we chose packets of Common Milkweed, Cosmos, and Black-Eyed Susan seeds. These flowers are either native to our area or do very well in our growing zone. You may need to use different seeds depending on your location.
Form into balls
If you haven’t got messy yet you will during this step! Scoop up a bit of the paper pulp mixture and form it into a ball. Ours ended up being about an inch in diameter. We tried to squeeze out any remaining water during this process.
Dry
We put the balls on an old window screen so they could get air from all sides. We made these about two weeks before my daughter’s birthday to make sure everything had a chance to dry. In hindsight, we probably could have made them closer to her birthday. Since this was our first time I wanted to err on the side of caution.
Package them up
I figured this goody bag was a bit different than the norm so I included some directions about what to actually do with the balls. Then, we packaged everything up in small bags.
Granted, making home made seed bombs was more involved than putting together baggies with store-bought trinkets. But it did cost a lot less thanks to having most of the supplies on hand and it felt good to make something with our hands.
I’m really curious to know if you have any other alternatives to passing out treat bags. Please leave me a comment because I’d love to make a list of ideas to draw from in years to come!
