Act of Kindness- Planting Love

11:32 AM

Plant so Love
Teaching Acts of Kindness has become a must in our home since last year. We do activities that the kids are able to participate in and then package them up. We usually place the project in the mailboxes of our neighbors. Nobody has complained so far.

For this month Act of Kindness we made seed paper, drew hearts on them, placed them in little baggies and attached an index card explaining what the object was and what it was for.

The seed paper was made a few days ago. The process to make seed paper is more in depth than open a package and go.

NEEDED:
Shredded Paper
Metal bowl
Water
Hand mixer
Seeds
Pasta strainer
Cookie sheet with sides
Rolling pin
Old towels
  
We took our junk mail and shredded it into strips. My son enjoyed ripping the paper and making a paper mess. Once the paper was shredded, we placed it in a metal mixing bowl and covered with water (hot water works into the paper faster). Let the paper sit for at least 10 minutes for the water to soak into the paper.

I suggest the metal bowl as the ink will be coming off the paper and staining your bowl. I was able to use a Brillo pad to remove the ink from the bowl.

We used a hand mixer because I don't like to use my food blender for our projects. Using the hand mixer does take a little longer but still effective. We mixed until the paper is mush.

After the paper is mush, we took a box of "butterfly mix" seeds and poured the seeds into the mush. I can't give an exact measurement but we poured and mixed with a spoon until we could see the seeds throughout the mush. 

Now that you have paper mush with seeds in it, it is time to get MESSY! We put our metal pasta strainer in the sink and dumped the paper mush into it. Press the mush against the sides of the strainer to release as much of the water you can.

Now press the paper mess into a metal cookie sheet with sides. Take a rolling pin and smooth the mixture as much as you can. 

Now time to use an old towel and lay it over the top of the paper mess. Use the rolling pin while applying pressure to press out more water. Once you have this side looking dry, flip the cookie sheet over onto another towel and press the other side. You need to get as much water out of the mixture as possible.

For the final drying step, we put the paper mess back into the cookie sheet, placed it into the oven. The oven was set on 250 degrees Fahrenheit. It took about 30 minutes. However, depending on how much water is still in the mixture varies the drying time. Keep an eye on it so it does not burn. 

TIME FOR FUN....

We used a pizza cutter to make squares of paper. We colored hearts on each paper square. Placed the paper squares into some of my jewelry bags and stapled a decorated index card.

Each index card explained that the seed paper was an Act of Kindness and to plant the seed paper and watch some love grow. To deliver the gifts we bundled the kids in snowsuits, walked to each of the neighbors, and placed them into the mailboxes.


This project was one of our more elaborate ones for my son to do. We did everything in steps, took breaks and finished in two days.










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