Day 17: Cardboard Bird Feeders
I love the recycled nature of these bird feeders, the options to interpret this as one desires, the giving nature of feeding the birds, and the visual aspect of these twirling in the wind! We made these last year for the nature preschool at Woodlawn Nature Center near Valentine's Day, with a heart shaped cardboard as our base. I thought they'd be fun to explore again.
Supplies: Bird feed, scissors, cardboard, pie tin, peanut butter, hole punch, yarn, butter knife
I used scissors to cut up cereal boxes into different shapes. Any shape that can be hung could work! Use your imagination! After cutting them out, I punched a hole to hang the bird feeders. I used my Crop-A-Dile II Big Bite Punch
--love this thing as it easily goes through cardboard and lets me put the hole where I need it, rather than be limited by a regular hole punch.
--love this thing as it easily goes through cardboard and lets me put the hole where I need it, rather than be limited by a regular hole punch. 
I spread peanut butter on my shapes with a knife and then dipped it in the bird feed. As I've talked with naturalists at nature centers, they have recommended black oil sunflower seed as being the best feed. It doesn't have filler and attracts a large variety of birds.
I like using old pie tins to hold bird feed. This mis has a better ration than some that have more corn. It's also neat to see different textures. I had to poke a hole through the peanut butter with a pen to guide my yarn through.
After tying a yarn (though any ribbons would be great!), we hung them outside! They could also be made into mobiles and arranged in other artistic manners. We may visit these again next month in 31 Days of Nature Giving. We have early Christmas with family this next week so may be sharing the bird feeder love.
