How to Save and Recycle Seed Packets

Express your personality, share a part of yourself, or simply utilize the beauty found in them-
This idea has a lot of room for growth and can be bended to fill several different themes or people. For example, I like the idea of putting a business card in there and handing them out, with or without a small gift or seeds, especially if it is a landscape or gardening business. You may also just like the aesthetics on a certain seed packet and that the concepts is a unique idea and employ them as place cards or party favors in an event. Hopefully you get the idea that I am working towards.

Create outdoor accents-
Where better to use your seed packets than outdoors, where the contents of each were intended for. You can decoupage them to bird houses, table tops, and planters. Make a wind chime, welcome sign, or plague. Whatever you can imagine that people use to decorate the outdoors can be decorated or made utilizing your seed packets. Changing the subject a little bit though, I would like to point out that variation in any design is good, and to pick and choose your projects.

Handmade home décor-
This is one especially fun for crafters and artist at heart, and can take so many forms that it is impossible to include them all in one or two paragraphs. I have seen a couple ideas here and there on the internet, and a search might show those, but for some ideas here to get you started thinking: you can create wall art, a montage, coasters, place mats, dish towels, clothes, and anything else you may think of. When you cant directly use the paper to create your ideas, you can scan and print them onto a base suitable to your needs (i.e. transparent, iron on, sticky back, etc.).

Vintage seed packets are quickly becoming a unique form of nostalgic art, a piece of history that expresses what people planted and the perceptions of art used.

"Many talented artists labored collectively for probably thousands of hours to come up with such gorgeous illustrations". - WordPlay, Hubpages.com

For these same reasons, they make a unique and interesting count to the collection of both antiques and art in your home.

Start a collection -
For those of us who have a tendency to be pack rats, here is a collection that I consider to be a great addition to a room full of odds and ends that you just can't seem to get rid of. Historians, artist, collectors, antiques'... each can enjoy the fun of collecting both vintage and modern seed packets.

Start a gardening journal -
"Seed packets that once held seeds, also held the dreams of the gardeners who purchased them." This eloquent quote of Laura Randel's has universal meaning for gardeners around the world; especially for those who truly find pleasure, even a livelihood, in planting and growing plants, trees, flowers, produce... and everything else. Our seed packets loosely resemble the essence of our labor, the lessons learned and wisdom gained from a system much greater than our-selves, and the unexplainable beauty and peace of God's creations.

Not only will adding these unique additions to a gardening journal add interest and a piece of history for future generations, but it will be practical as well. A gardening journal is a great source for keeping records of trial and error, soil and environment conditions, caring instructions, etc., and seed packets usually hold specific information pertaining to that plant; such as sun and soil preferences, mature size, and both common and scientific names.

Be practical - Of course, if you are a gardener through and through, you may want to keep the seed packets to any plants you intent to harvest seeds from - this way you already have a name tag for your seeds. Or, you might use them to mark rows in our garden, and as note tags to mark were you planted what. Especially as beginners, we really appreciate having that information contained on a seed packet at our fingertips when we are still learning.