How pleasantly surprised I was this morning while browsing my favorite sustainable news source, Feelgood Style.  If you’re a sucker for wildflowers and sustainability – you’ll love this DIY Valentine.  If you aren’t familiar with seed paper, allow me to getcha up to date.

Seed paper is a special paper is handmade by using post-consumer materials.  The paper is embedded with wildflower, herb or vegetable seeds.  When you plant the paper in a pot of soil or outside in a garden, the seeds in the paper germinate and grow into plants.  I’m challenging myself to have a sustainable Valentine’s day this year with the help of seed paper.  I am refusing to participate with the 145 million others in our annual Valentine’s glossy card sending.  This doesn’t mean I’m giving up Valentine’s Day – it just means we need to think about Valentine ideas that are more about the love and less about the stuff.  I think these seed paper hearts are the perfect alternative to conventional Valentine’s Day cards.  And your sassy Valentine can plant and enjoy the flowers they produce for much longer than they’d probably display a paper card.

Seed Paper Valentine by Scott Meeks, Crafting a Green World

What You Need

• 1 cup of ripped-up newspaper or junk mail
• 2 cups of water
• Wildflower seeds
• 3 heart-shaped mini aluminum pie tins or silicone molds
• 2 large bowls
• Blender

Prep Your Paper

1. Tear the newspaper or junk mail into small pieces. This is the perfect task for tiny hands that need something to do! Be sure to throw in a few small pieces of red or pink paper.
2. In a blender, blend the water and paper until it’s a chunky. It should look like oatmeal.
3. Dump the mixture into a bowl.
4. Take handfuls of the pulp and squeeze out most of the water. The pulp should now be moist, but not sopping wet.
5. Put your squeezed-out pulp into a clean bowl.

Make Your Seed Paper

1. Sprinkle your pulp with wildflower seeds and gently mix with your fingers.
2. Divide your pulp into three equal parts.
3. Mash each part into the mini pie tins or silicone molds.
4. You can pat the tops dry with a cloth to get rid of excess moisture.
5. After 24 hours, pop the paper hearts out of the tins and place them on a cookie rack for another 24 hours to finish drying.
6. Attach these hearts to homemade cards or simply wrap them in wax paper and give away as Valentines.