Seed Saving Envelopes

Seed saving envelopes are a great way to store your seeds after you've mutilated your original seed packet (as I've done, frequently).

These envelopes are fast, easy, and inexpensive. They can be customized to include as little or as much information about your seeds as you want and best of all, they're fun to make!

If stored appropriately, say in a storage box of some sort, your seeds could last you several years ("best by" dates be damned).

-Cardstock, paper bag, or other paper

-Glue stick, pencil, ruler, scissors, embroidery needle

-Brads/fasteners

-String/twine

-Stamps & ink (optional)

The sheet of card stock I used is 4.5" x 6.5". When all is said and done a sheet of paper this size will get you a 2.5x3" envelope.

The first thing you want to do is measure the top, bottom, and sides of the paper to make your folds. It doesn't really matter where you start because the end result will be the same. But you want to make sure that your sides overlap one another and that the top is longer than the bottom---just looks nicer, I think.

Fold each side of your paper.

After you've folded all the sides of your paper, you want to cut out the little square or rectangle at the corner of each side. This creates your top, bottom, and sides.

You need two fasteners for each envelope. Take one of your fasteners and tie your string around it. Poke a small hole in the center of your top flap and slide the fastener into it and secure. You can add a little glue to the string for good measure.

Next, find a good spot directly down from the first hole and poke through both flaps. Add glue to the top of the inside flap and press. Slide second fastener into the holes on your flap and secure.

Add glue to your bottom flap and press up.

Now you've got a string tie envelope that you can store your seeds in!

Decorate the cover (and back if you want) of your envelopes. I did this with my students and we used mostly stamps . Later, the envelopes that they made will be attached to their garden journals which is not only part of our gardening elective, but part of their Writing class as well :-)