Flock of seed paper sheep

First I wanted to say hello to everyone visiting here for the first time from Linda's fabulous blog. Welcome!

Today I wanted to show you the result of a project that's been in the works since early this spring! A crafty friend of mine, Kelly, raises sheep in Maryland, and earlier this spring she sent me a link on how to make paper from scraps of paper. What a neat idea, considering that my letterpress operation often generates piles of scraps of paper after trimming items down to size.

Then in May I attended a wedding where the favors were handmade paper in the shape of butterflies with embedded flower seeds. Kelly's birthday is in June, so I launched a plan to make seed paper in the shape of sheep, packaged with a letterpress printed tag, that I could send to her to then use as gifts or to market her sheep.

Fast forward four months in which I tested various seeds and sheep-shape cookie cutters, and I finally (!) was able to send her the first the first small flock of seed paper sheep this week! I hope she likes them. :)



The sheep are made out of 100% cotton paper scraps leftover from printing projects, and they are embedded with sweet basil seeds.



Each sheep is packaged in a clear plastic sleeve tied with a piece of black cotton string.



Attached to each sheep is a letterpress-printed label. The front of the tag gives her farm information and includes a suffolk sheep.



The back of the tag provides instructions on how to plant the seed paper.



I was able to make about 40 sheep for this flock, which Kelly will give to the lucky folks who stop by her place during this fall's famers' markets and farm tours, and I plan to make more in the next few weeks for her to use as gifts for 4-H kids who bought club lambs from her this year.

In case anyone is interested in their own flock of seed paper sheep (or any other animal), I'll post a tutorial for it next week. Have a happy weekend!