Spring is in the air and the birds are going bananas at my house! They are up and at ’em early every morning, making sure that I no longer need to set an alarm. And since I guess that they are helping me out by getting me out of bed at the crack of dawn, (yes, that is sarcasm you’re sensing…haha) I’ll help them out by giving them a nice place to enjoy a meal with this kid friendly diy bird feeder.
It will just coincidentally be hung as far away from my bedroom windows as possible!
Supplies:
plastic beads (1 bag of 500 should be enough for one bird feeder)
aluminum foil
cake pan
oven safe bowl
twine or ribbon
hot glue
Cover the cake pan in aluminum foil, and preheat the oven to 350*. Quick tip here, if you have a toaster oven, I would suggest setting that up outside and making the bird feeder there. If making it in your home, just know that you will have the lovely smell of melted plastic to deal with for an hour or two.
Arrange the beads to your liking on the bottom only of the cake pan. Make sure that you have all of the holes filled and that they are packed in like sardines! If you have large holes, the beads won’t melt enough to cover them and your bird seed will fall right out.
Bake for 30 minutes, then allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Once cooled, pop them out of the pan and remove the foil.
You’ve got a plate, but now its time to make it more of a bowl shape so that the bird seed stays put. So take the oven safe bowl, flip it upside down and cover it with aluminum foil. Grab that pretty bead “plate” that you just made and set it right on top. Back in the oven it goes for another 5 minutes or so (watch while it’s in the oven and pull it out as soon as it gets to the shape that you like).
After your creation has cooled a bit, remove it from the bowl, grab your twine and cut two pieces that are long enough to hang from your desired location. Using hot glue, make an cross with the twine on the bottom of the bird feeder.
All that’s left to do now is fill her up and hang. The birds will love you for your kindness, and maybe even repay it by letting you sleep in a bit this weekend!
This is a great craft to do with the kiddos and would even be a perfect Mother’s Day gift. Get those kiddos crafting with you and let them enjoy seeing their creations hanging around the yard.
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