Chaos writes:
So… what does one do with cereal boxes, if you can’t bear to stick them in the recycling, how about cooking up some cute little Papier–mâché seedling pots.
We ripped the cardboard cereal boxes and rice cake boxes into small pieces, and gave them a good soaking. Then pulped the pieces with water, in the blender (sssh, don’t tell Daddy).
Draining the pulp in a colander, squeezing the excess water. Flour the work surface, and mix, knead in some flour {SECRET INGREDIENT ALERT!}.
And take small quantities, pushing into the silicone muffin cases to mold the little pots. We air-dried the pots over-night, however, for speed, you could pop them into the oven, if you were baking spuds, or home-made pizza anyway!
We DID try to make a batch of these seedling pots in conventional metal cake trays… FAIL!, they set solid, glued in… so yes, silicone rules!
First Published April 12 2013.
Updated September 2024 to include a link to a recent post from incredibusy about paper clay… here
Click this image below to watch the youtube video of our Google+ hangout – and watch Maggy from Red Ted Art sharing her shadow puppet theatre and her ‘everlasting’ picture frame, Playful Learners made another gorgeous puppet theatre Aly at Plus 2 Point 4 showed us how to use a box as a weaving loom, and my fave, Me and My Shadow and her vintage style secret book…
To read more on our gardening adventures click here to see where we got our delicious compost for our seedlings.
To see how our garden grows, follow our Gardening With Kids posts here.
and how to make an indoor watering can here!
Out in the garden…compost treasures
Chaos writes:
Out in the garden this morning before school, grabbing some compost for the little Papier–mâché seedling pots pictured below.
And look! (actually, look away now if you’re squeamish about worms… oh, too late…)
There was a potato growing deep at the bottom of the hotbin compost bin! I’ve pulled him out, and re-planted the little spud, how exciting – looking forward to harvesting them later in the year 🙂 #composttreasures
To read more on our gardening adventures click here to see where we got our delicious compost for our seedlings.
To see how our garden grows, follow our Gardening With Kids posts here.
and how to make an indoor watering can here!
Are you on Google+ Follow me here, and say hello, and I’ll add you back to my circles.
Oh, and I’m on twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos too… Erm, and funnily enough on Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x Like it? Pin it!
Ali also writes over on AGreenerLifeforus.com
Gardening with kids – watching the seeds grow
Chaos writes:
So, you may have read my previous post about the lovely @soggywelly sending us some random seeds and beans? Well… look how they are shooting up!
my Mother used to make these newspaper planters (and, having shot the video of lovely Maggy Red Ted Art demonstrating how to make them).
Really simple to do with the kids, and to involve them with planting the seeds and beans. We also made some cute little labels – thank you Life at the Zoo for the inspiration!
And along with the toilet roll tubes, these can be popped straight into the earth in the garden – although, it’s so cold here at the moment, I think we’ll keep them on the window sill for a little longer!
We’ve popped these on the sitting room window sill, it’s only little greenhouse, and keep a little plastic milk bottle beside the seeds, with a few holes punched into the lid so that we don’t forget to water them… something 8yo feels proud to ‘be in charge of’ – and excited every day at their growth rate!
To see how our garden grows, follow our Gardening With Kids posts here.
And find out how to use your toilet roll tubes to make bird seed feeders too.
Are you on Google+ Follow me here, and say hello, and I’ll add you back to my circles.
Oh, and I’m on twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos too… Erm, and funnily enough on Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x