Chipper Nature Craft: Valentine’s Day Bird Feeder

Celebrate your love of nature and make a heart shaped bird seed feeder this Valentine’s Day! The birdies like Red and Robbin will sure love you back for putting some out and bird watching makes a great activity for you and the family to get outdoors and watch you winged friends stop by!

What you need:

• 1 1/2 cups Bird Seed (check out your local pet store or learn to make your own here!)

• Peanut Butter (if your child has allergies, try using 2 gelatin packets and a 1/2 cup of boiling water instead!)

• Heart Shaped cookie cutter (and tin foil or wax paper!) or silicon mold (no tin foil or wax paper needed!)

• String

• Scissors

• Straws

Instructions:

1. First, make your bird seed mixture in a large bowl. How much peanut butter you use depends on how many bird feeder hearts you want to make. A regular sized container of peanut butter to one regular sized bird bag works perfectly. The goal is to have enough peanut butter to make sure the bird feed stays together. Alternatively, if your kids have peanut allergies, use gelatin and water instead!

2. Once you have your mixture, start pressing it firmly into your mold. If you are using a cookie cutter, place your cutter on top of a sheet of foil or wax paper. If using foil, some no-stick cooking spray makes it easy to remove your feeder once it dries.

1. Cut up your straws into small pieces. Stick one piece into the top of your heart. This makes a hole for your string so you can easily stick it through to hang your feeder. If you don’t have any straws around or want to forgo using plastic, just stick your pre-cut/pre-tied piece of string into your half-filled mold or cutter then add the rest of the seed mixture on top to hold in place.

2. Once you have formed your hearts and have added your straws or stings, place on a cookie sheet and dry for a few hour (over night is best).

3. Once dry, pull out your straws and tie through your string.1. Now comes the fun part! Explore your back yard or school yard for the perfect place to hang your feeder. Make sure it is in a spot you can observe later.

2. Look outside every day and observe which kids of birds you see and how long it takes for them to eat the whole feeder. The hearts not only give little birds some much needed nourishment during the cold winter months, they also add some natural sparkle to your wintery yard!

Making flower art is another fun craft with left over bird seed and dry beans. Just grab some recycled paper and glue, make your design with the glue on your paper, then pour over seed and dry!

What other craft can you make with bird seed? Let Chipper know and have fun bird watching! 🙂