Plantable Seed Favors

The pinkish one used purple angel wings. The dye bled. The yellowish ones used fresh flower petals. These discolored the most and looked almost like baked cookies. There is one very white one that you can see the flannel threads on. This was one of my favorites!

What you need

For 8 favors:

Loose Cotton Linters
Paper Napkins
Colored Paper Scraps or other paper inclusions (optional)
Cuisinart or blender
Large strainer
Soap Molds (I used two Celtic themed molds with four designs each)
Sponges
Packet of favorite seeds

Instructions

Cut 8-10 paper napkins into 1″ squares. The color of your napkins will affect the color of your finished favor. I used a lot of white napkins from fast food take out restaurants.

It’s easiest to work with napkins with a high rag content – these will be thick and soft. Colored picnic napkins tend to be stringy and harder to work with but they make great inclusions.

Add your napkin bits to your blender with about four cups of cotton linter and add enough water to barely cover the paper and linter. Blend until pulpy and well-mixed, adding more water if needed.

f desired, add inclusions like angel wings (sold for paper making) or colored paper bits or threads, choosing items that will not have a lot of color bleed, and mix these in. Alternatively, you can place threads or paper scraps in the bottom of the soap molds. These will end up on the surface of the favors. I got some great results with flannel threads and with scraps of contrasting colored napkins.

Pour your pulp into a large strainer. If you are using white paper or something that has no dye bleed, you can reserve the water to use on the next batch. Otherwise, throw it out.

Fill your soap molds 3/4 full of pulp. Sprinkle your flower seeds onto the pulp. Cover with an additional thin layer of pulp.

Using a sponge, press the pulp firmly down into the molds. Compact the pulp with the sponge as much as possible, removing as much water as you can. The more water you remove, the better.

Put your soap mold into the freezer for 15-30 min.

Pop your favors out of the molds. They should pop out like ice cubes.

If you want to add a hanging ribbon, allow the favors to thaw for 30 min and poke a hole in them. I found that a needle and a bamboo skewer worked well.

It will take two to three days for these to dry completely. Dry these in a cool, dark place with the design side DOWN because, depending on your inclusions, the upper side will discolor some during drying. Do NOT dry in the sun. Your seeds will sprout if you do. 🙂

I didn’t try drying them out in the fridge because there was no room but I suspect this would work well to keep the seeds dormant and to pull the moisture out of the favors.

I added a card with the bride and groom names and wedding date on the outside and planting instructions on the inside.

For planting, I recommended breaking the favor into 8 pieces, scattering and soaking.