Sowing seeds and planting beans in pretty paper plant pots

Last weekend we went to an outdoor food and craft market here in Amsterdam, and we came across a beautiful stand full of bags filled with dried beans in every size and colour, coming from every corner of the world. The children were completely captivated by the beauty and origin of all of these beans, and they didn't want to leave the stand until the kind lady ended up giving them each a few beans in a little bag, which they treated like true treasures.Once back home, we decided to test out the Paper Potter that Conscious Craft (a beautiful natural toy & craft shop and a member of our shopping portal) had sent us. The concept of the Paper Potter is brilliantly simple -- strips of newspaper are rolled around a wooden tool and then tightly pressed into a form to shape it into a sweet little paper plant pot that is completely bio-degradable. How cool!Creating the plant pots proved to be a super fun activity and it took a while until the kids had stopped squabbling over the wooden tool, but once they had figured out a rotating schedule, they had quickly created enough paper pots to plant their beautiful beans.The paper pots are now in front of our window sill, looking very pretty by themselves... But this morning we've seen that the beans are slowly coming up, so it won't be long until we will see the seedlings grow.I think the Paper Potter is such a fun gift to families -- both parents as the children will love to create the fun paper pot -- and to grow lots of little plants!xxx Esther