How to make Seed Bomb Easter Eggs

If you're looking for a non-chocolate gift to give this Easter, then this may be just the ticket.

It's not difficult to make, you just need a little patience, so older children should easily be able to make them.

I think it's such a great present to give.  Imagine the fun the recipient will have stealthily seeking out areas of urban wasteland to brighten up, indulging in a bit of guerrilla gardening, and smiling that secret smile when the flowers start to bloom.  And frankly, who doesn't want an excuse to throw eggs?

Seed bombs, if you've not heard of them are a method of populating areas with plants.  The term as first coined back in the seventies when the Green Guerrilla movement first started.

For this make, you will need:

A carton of eggs
Some wild flower seed
Transfer letters (or if you have pretty handwriting, a non-toxic pen)
A large needle (darning type)
A candle

Start off by giving yourself a hernia blowing your eggs.  I did mine over a period of a week, saving the shells, otherwise I fear I would have blown some blood vessels also.  You basically need to prick a hole at each end of the egg and blow like billio.  Red Ted Art is braver than I and shows pictures of how to do it.

One tip, make sure you remove your lipstick first, because that just looks WRONG.

I chose white eggs from the Posh Hen company, and if you can get them fresh from the farm that's even better because they won't have a date stamp on.

If you wish, you can dye them pretty colours and this site has some great instructions for using natural, food based dyes.  However, I was quite taken with the pure whiteness.

Once your egg shells are empty, make sure you rinse them out thoroughly with warm water, and leave to dry both inside and out.  This might take overnight.

Next you need to seal up the top hole (pointy end of the egg).  Do this by dripping a drop of hot wax from a candle onto the top of the egg.  Once the wax has cooled and hardened you can neaten it up by scraping with your fingernail over the surface, and the hole should remain sealed.

At the rounded end, this will be where you fill with seeds.  You may want to make the hole a little bigger by carefully working your needle around the hole.

Next comes the part which takes a little patience.  You can use plain wild flower seeds straight from the packet (be sure to use indigenous ones), or like I have use this shake and rake stuff.  It's pre-mixed with a 'spreading medium' - that's sawdust to me and you.  It will help the seeds stretch further though.

This part takes a little trial and error.  You might find rolling some paper up into a little funnel helps, or pouring the seed mix onto a piece of paper and folding it up to pour (like how you clear up spilled glitter). But generally I just sprinkled pinches over the hole and poked it down!

Finally, when you have enough seed inside (you don't need to fill them completely, that would take you forever!) you need to seal the hole again with wax like before.

Then, you can leave as they are, or add mottos and words on.  I used one word motto which acts as the instructions for use too.  You can hand write this on, or if your writing is appalling like mine, use transfers.

I peeled off the label from the original egg box and added a Happy Easter label, ready for gifting.

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