When Maya Drozdz and Michael Stout of
VisuaLingual in Over-The-Rhine created their muslin sacks of seed bombs - tiny, round, dried bundles of native wildflower seeds, red clay and fertilizer - about 18 months ago, they thought of it as a fun way to highlight their work as designers with the Victorian inspired art on the front of the small bag. It was one of several products they had developed, and one they didn't expect to get a lot of mileage out of.
"We really thought it would inspire only mild local interest," says Drozdz. "We created a few dozen, and then we thought 'what are we going to do with all of these.'"
Well, thousands of orders of seed bombs later, Drozdz is now wondering how she can create them fast enough.
After rolling out the seed bomb bags to a few Cincinnati area retailers such as
Park + Vine, Drozdz contacted a few stores in Chicago, some of whom promoted the seed bomb bags as stocking stuffers last year.
Before she knew it, Drozdz says the product was being featured in national magazines such as Vogue, House Beautiful and Women's Day, and the calls from new retailers began pouring in.
One of those new retailers was
Anthropologie, an upscale national women's fashion chain. They ordered 6,000 of the seed bomb pouches last spring and asked for another big order for the Christmas shopping season this fall.
"It did not seem plausible to us that all these people would be interested," says Drozdz. "We really just saw them as a local guerilla gardening product. Something you could throw at a trouble spot and turn it into something pretty (the seed bombs are designed to grow without being conventionally sown). But the appeal of them turned out to be much broader than we anticipated."
Anthropologie Home Buyer Melissa Green says the seed bomb pouches are a unique concept and a fun purchase for her customers.
"They are something pretty with a touch of whimsy," she says. "It's such a great design for this type of product. They've been very well received by our customers."
Green says the seed bomb sacks, priced at $6, are popular as small gifts and stocking stuffers for the holidays. The chain has even ordered two new varieties, herb - with a mix of five popular herbs - and dog and cat friendly - with catnip, wheat, oats and rye - for pet owners.
The new varieties will be rolled out for the first time at an invitation-only opening of the new Anthropologie location at Kenwood Towne Centre, on Thursday evening (the public is invited to the store on Friday).
Until this fall, Drozdz says she and Stout had been doing much of the work in making the seed bombs themselves, which involves rolling the seeds, clay and fertilizer by hand into tiny balls and then drying them before placing five of them into each muslin bag. But she knew the two of them could not keep up with the thousands of orders they needed to fill for the holidays.
To get help, they turned to
ArtWorks of Cincinnati, a non-profit organization that connects young artists with opportunities to create art in the community, and where Stout is Program and Design Manager during his "day job." They recruited high school age teens from the ArtWorks summer program and Drozdz got a crew of six to help her get the seed bombs to her customers on time.
"This is a very primitive mechanical process," Drozdz laughs about her makeshift production line for the pouches. "These kids really learned about a lot more than just making pretty art."
Putting in time after school, the team has assembled 30,000 seed bombs, enough for 6,000 pouches.
"They've actually been involved in every aspect of the production cycle," says Drozdz. "They learned a lot about how the artistic process works, from creation to labor to material costs. "I'm sure that a lot of them didn't realize that being an artist meant getting your hands full of mud and fertilizer," she laughs.
Stout says this is the kind of project where students learn about what it really takes to get a product to market.
"There's really some practical job training components in this," he says. "They're learning how to make it work to support themselves as artists."
Drozdz says she is hoping the team will attend the grand opening of the new Anthropologie on Thursday from 6-8 p.m. to celebrate a job well done. By coincidence, the store is donating 10 percent of its proceeds from the evening to ArtWorks.
"I really hope the kids come to the party," says Drozdz. "It would be a nice way for them to see the results of all their hard work."
Photography by Scott Beseler.