DIY Birdseed Ornaments
The inspiration for this project came from (what else?) a Hallmark movie. Yes, I watch way too many of them. The characters in the movie actually make all sorts of treats for the birds, but I focused on the birdseed ornaments. I’ll have to look into some other ideas another time. I was pleased to find that not only is this something that actually works, but that there was a lot of information out there on how to make them.
I bought the supplies for these months ago, but life got in the way and we just got around to making them. A few days ago I put a birdseed block out on the deck, and it has attracted allll sorts of birds—even a crow! If you feed them, they will come. Clearly they are hungry, so that upped my resolve to get some ornaments outside ASAP.
This is a great project for kids. It wasn’t hard to convince mine to help me out with this. They’ve grown to love our bird friends, too, and they also love any excuse to work with cookie cutters. We really don’t need to use them for cookies for ourselves after the holidays, so I consider it a win-win.
I did a lot of research before starting this project, and while the information I found was pretty similar, there were some differences in the methods used. I’ll show you what worked for us, starting with the supplies we used.
Supplies:
2 cups of birdseed
1/2 cup of water
2 packets of gelatin
Cookie cutters
String/twine
Parchment paper
A straw cut into pieces
Sauce pan
Optional:
Mixing bowl
Cookie sheet
For the birdseed I just used a basic blend. Honestly, it was just what I was able to order for curbside pickup. The two birds on the packaging (a cardinal and a sparrow) are two of our most frequent visitors, so it seemed like a good fit.
All of the tutorials I found used pretty metal cookie cutters that photographed really well, but my kids gravitated towards the thin, colorful plastic cookie cutters in odd shapes. Whatever. I wasn’t sure how well they would work, but they did. Remember as you’re choosing your shapes, though, that the more sharp corners they have the more challenging it’ll be to get the birdseed mixture pressed in there. Kids especially might find that tricky.
I pulled out a couple of string options to use, but I ended up going with the twine I’ve been using for various projects. I think it’ll be good for the birds to use as nesting material once they’ve eaten the food.
Some tutorials I found recommended greasing the cookie cutters. I did not do that, and I had zero issues getting them out of the molds.
I read some differing opinions about this, but I made a batch using 2 cups of birdseed. I would definitely not make a bigger batch than that though. The mixture starts to dry quickly, so I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to halve the recipe. Since I had my three kids working with me, I went ahead with the bigger batch.
Let’s get started!
Step 1
Prepare your work space. Lay out a sheet of parchment paper and line up your cookie cutters on top. If you’re going to need to move the filled cookie cutters out of the way as they dry, you can put them on a cookie sheet.
Step 2
Prepare the seed mixture. Pour 2 cups of birdseed into a mixing bowl. Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil, and then pour in the gelatin, stirring constantly until it’s all dissolved. Remove from the heat and let it cool for a minute. Pour gelatin mixture into the bowl with the seed and mix until all of the birdseed is coated. Some of our gelatin ended up clumping up a bit (I guess maybe I didn’t stir fast enough?), so I was a little nervous that there wouldn’t be enough gelatin mixture to go around. It turned out to be just fine though.
Note: This is one step where I found a lot of variety in the instructions. Some tutorials said to do it the way I did. Some said to pour the gelatin into the pan with the water as it’s heating up. Some said to add the gelatin to half the water and then boil the other half before adding it to the mixture. I’m not a gelatin expert by any means, and I’m sure they all work fine; I’m just sharing what we did.
Step 3
Working quickly, use a spoon to start filling the cookie cutters. Make sure to press down firmly as you go so that everything really sticks together. Take extra care to get into the little nooks and crannies of your mold. Put a piece of a straw where you want to create a hole and press it down until it feels like it’s gone all the way through. Press the seed mixture around the outside of the straw.
Alternative to the straw method: Fill the cookie cutter halfway up and then lay a piece of folded string on top—leaving enough of a loop sticking out so that you can hang it up—and then fill the cookie cutter the rest of the way up. I was originally planning to do this because it just seemed like it would be more secure, but most of the cookie cutters we used were so thin that we filled them up more than halfway almost without even trying. We decided to make the holes instead.
Step 4
Let them dry. After a couple of hours ours were feeling pretty dry, but I made the kids wait to take them out. Before I went to bed, though, I attempted to free a couple of them, and they came out of the cookie cutters easily. I saved the rest until this morning so the kids could participate. Once they’re free and you’ve made sure the holes go all the way through, use your twine/string to make a hanger loop for them.
Step 5
Hang them up! We’ve only hung up two of ours so far. I figure we’ll see how well they’re received and then hang the others on the same tree or elsewhere. If you’re going to store some of them, use an airtight container—but not right away. One problem other people seemed to run into was their ornaments turning moldy. I plan to leave ours out for a week to make sure they’re truly dry, and then we’ll store them if we haven’t put them outside yet.
All that’s left to do is enjoy some birdwatching. I’d love to see what kind of birds you see! 🙂
Look! We’ve had our first customer. A sweet little dark-eyed junco has been visiting one of our ornaments. I’m looking at other places we might hang some.
