since winter’s coming, we decided to help out our bird friends, once again. we’re definitely friends to the winged creatures around here — pimping their living spaces with our nesting orbs and birdhouses in the past, so this time we thought we’d help them dine on some fine holiday cuisine with a couple birdfeeders.
i’ve always been a bit wary of creating birdfeeders with my nut-allergic little one, so safety was key to this project. i found some great nut-free birdseed at the hardware store. it was still processed in a facility that has nuts, so we played it safe and donned dust masks and gloves while exposed to the seed.
the first type of birdfeeder we wanted to make is a cute sleeve feeder to put onto a tree branch a la the mofatt girls blog. all we needed was:
- birdseed
- a cardboard tube (toilet paper, paper towel roll, etc)
- nut/seed butter — we used sunbutter sunflower seed butter
N applied the sunflower seed butter to the outside of our tube.
we spilled some seed out onto a baking tray, and she rolled the sticky buttery tube through the seed to cover it (with gloves on.)
we ventured into the backyard and found a branch to slip the tube over… it’s in the same tree as three of our kid-painted bird houses. love that.
when we checked on our feeder a few hours later, we saw that we’d entertained some customers! and the next day, the birdseed was totally gone. see photos below:
the second type of feeder we aimed to make was more complex, but promised a little more aesthetic satisfaction. we followed the tutorial on mom ready for these birdfeeder ornaments. our supplies included:
- birdseed
- 2 packets of gelatine (we used knox)
- a jello/chocolate mold and/or cookie cutters
- string
first, N mixed up the gelatin concoction. we used 2 packets of knox gelatine with a half cup of cold water. (*note: this may be the wrong ratio – read on…) we put it in the fridge to wait for it to gel a bit.
after about 10 minutes in the fridge, we slowly stirred 2 cups of birdseed into the gelatine. in hindsight, i would have used less birdseed – maybe 1.5 cups – but when reading the mom ready blog, it seemed important not to have too much extra gelatine in the blend. i just think ours could have benefitted from more “glue” — thus, less seed or more gelatine.
then we used our gloves and masks while pressing the wet birdseed mix into our trusty heart mold tray (the one we usually make upcycled heart crayons in.) apparently you can also spread a layer of seed out on a cookie sheet and use cookie cutters to cut the shapes… but our loose seed blend was of no consistency to survive that.
once they were pressed into the tray, we used a pencil to poke a hole in the center (to allow for less string slippage) of each heart. we put them into the fridge for 3 hours to “gel” and then left them out for 2 days to “harden.”
after they were hard enough to pop out of the mold, we tied some baker’s twine through each hole. the ones that survived this looked pretty cute!
survivors
we trimmed a tree in our yard with these edible ornaments – waiting for a partridge, 2 turtle doves, 3 french hens, 4 calling birds, 6 geese, or 7 swans to swing on by our house. (gosh, there are a lot of birds in that christmas carol!)
