A fun activity for the little ones. They will watch birds eat from the feeder for many seasons. This bird feeder was made from baby formula cans..(we recycle a lot of things). I am Jamaican so recycling is in my DNA. I reuse butter dish, sauce bottles, bean tins – you name it, I can find another use for it so, can my growing kids. They are truly a product of their environment like I am.
During the summer months, there is always many fun outdoor project to make and take home. The children made these, took them home then told me about the many birds they watched come and go.
Get your formula can(s) and let’s do this.
First, we stripped off the paper and painted the can brown.
After painting, I made a cut out of where the birds would feed from. I used a small sharp knife. Oh, another reason I used the baby formula cans was that they are more pliable and can cut through than all metal tins.
It was a warm summer day so we did this activity outdoors. Cans painted and ready.
To hang the bird feeder, I pierced some hole in the cover using an ice pick. The ice pick made it easy to do.
Make some knots under the cap to help hang the feeder. You will also need to glue the cap on as this will help secure the cap on the can. I did long twine as I wasn’t sure where these would be hung from (the length).
We then got the colored craft sticks and some tacky glue to cover the can. I glued the stick across the top of the can cover to help keep it secure while suspended. You can use E6000 glue also but for us, the tacky glue worked.
Keep adding the sticks around can but, don’t cover the hole for feeding.
This is what it looked like. I used twine to hold the sticks together until they dried. Then they all wanted to keep the twine on as they loved how it looked.
Let the cans dry for some hours or a day. Children love decorating so get some stickers or not:)
We added some clothespin so the bird can pitch on the feeder. And you can add more sticks to diagonally to close some of the gap.
Pour some bird food inside. It’s best to use a funnel or make one like we did.
And they’were done. Children get to take home and hang. Proud of their accomplishments.
During the winter months, we still had birds coming to eat from the feeder. A note – we hung some on trees but, they got ruined by some ravenous squirrels. This one survived at our home as it was hung under the porch roof and those critters couldn’t get to it.
Hope you too have some cans or tins to recycle into a beautiful bird feeder.
Miss Sue
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