How to Make a Bird Feeder from a Liquor Bottle

Anyone else have baby birds galore in their yard?  With lots of little mouths to feed, wouldn't it be nice to help out the adult birds with an extra feeder or two? I've been making and selling these fabulously upcycled bird feeders for two years now.  I only sell them at festivals, farmers markets and the like.  Because they are so expensive to ship, you won't find them in my Etsy shop anymore.  So I thought, why not show the rest of the world how I make them.  Check it out, I officially call them Booze Bottle Bird Feeders:

They're pretty easy to make once you get past the drilling a hole in glass part.  But, remember, I showed you how to do that in my last post.  You'll need just a few supplies:

1.  Wine or liquor bottle with the original cap or a cork
2.  A thrift store plate
3.  A 12-18" (ish) length of copper wire
4.  Vice Grip (best ten bucks I've spent in a long time!)
5.  Clear Silicone
6.  And if you don't already have one, a Diamond Hole Saw for drilling your holes in the bottle

Once you've drilled your holes in the "booze" bottle, you can use your vice grip to shape and coil the copper wire around the neck of the bottle to form your hanger.  Then simply add a solid bead of silicone adhesive to the bottom of your bottle and press it into place on your plate.  Set it aside to cure and in a short three hours time, you'll have your very own booze bottle bird feeder.  Now go raid your recycle bin...or the neighbors and get to it!

Four Upcycled Creations That are for the Birds!

Baby season is upon us....for birds and other creatures who call your yard home it is anyway.  Wouldn't it be nice to offer a helping hand to all those new little families?  Especially if you can add some whimsy to your yard and garden for not a lot of cash at the same time.  Check out these four super quick, cheap and upcycled pieces that grace my garden:

Just have to have one?  You will not believe how incredibly simple each one of these is to make!

1.  Seed Feeder made from a thrifted bud vase, plate and planter
2.  Hummingbird Feeder made from a wine bottle
3.  Bird Bath made from a thrifted plant pot and a decorative bowl
4.  Nest Box made from a thrifted tea kettle and a piece of pallet wood

Most of these projects required not much more than silicone adhesive to complete and are a snap to make!

Which one will you make?

How to Make a Wine Bottle Hummingbird Feeder

This time of year you can typically find my Etsy shop shelves stocked with a variety of upcycled bird feeders.  And this year I've added a line of Booze Bottle Bird Feeders made from bottles that a local restaurant would have otherwise thrown in the trash.  Recycling isn't as widely accepted where I live as it is in major cities across the country.  Here, waste management services typically charge restaurants (and even some residents) an additional fee for recycling so it's more cost effective just to toss everything in the garbage.  I know, sad, but true.

I thought I'd show you how to make one of my simpler bird feeder styles.  It's a hummingbird feeder made from a wine bottle and I've put together a video tutorial for it.

I go over the tools you'll need to make this bird feeder in the video, but the one thing that you'll likely have a hard time finding are the stoppers with the built in tube feeder.  I can't tell you how many people ask me if I sell just the stoppers when I'm out at Farmer's Markets and other festivals.  So, here are the one's I use:



I hope you'll enjoy making these and share the project with your bird loving friends!

Linking up to Catch As Catch Can on My Repurposed Life

My Snapple Bird Feeder Is Working!

Remember the Snapple bird feeder that I made last week?  Well, I'm happy to report that it is actually working!  Here's what I saw when I came home from work last night.  There's only a smidge of bird seed left in the bottle.

I probably wouldn't have even notice if it weren't for the giant Blue Jay sitting atop the Shepard's hook eating.  I don't know how someone that big was able to feed from it, but there he was - the very first Blue Jay that I've seen in my yard.  I was very excited!

Have you tried it yet?

My Snapple Bird Feeder

Have you seen those bird feeders using glass bottles in a wooden frame attached to the house?  I've seen a couple but I really wanted a hanging version, so I made this bird feeder:

 

I think it needs a bit of design work but the concept is ready to share, you might to grab a cup of coffee, this is a long one.  Here's what you'll need to make your very own upcycled bird feeder:

1. A glass bottle with lid, you'll want a bottle with a larger opening so the seed will fit through.
2. The bottom of a 2 liter soda bottle
3. Craft wire
4. Galvanized Steel Wire
5. Drill, maybe.  If you can start the hole in the lid with a nail and hammer you can use a good pair of scissors to widen the hole
6.  Scissors...oh yeah, you'll need a blow dryer too.

The first thing you'll want to do is set up the cup portion of the feeder.  Cut around the bottom of the soda bottle to give you the shape of the flower.  Be careful not to cut too low between the "petals" or you'll end up with a leaky cup.

To help the birds latch on you'll need to make a sort of ledge on the petals.  Nothing fancy, just flip your bottle bottom over so the petal tips are on the table and use your blow dryer heat the edges.  As you do, apply a little pressure to guide the shape. This will help the edges bend over instead of just giving you a way appearance.    This doesn't take very long so be sure to keep an eye on it.


Now we need to attach this to the lid, so drill a hole in the lid and use a pair of scissors to widen the hole.  It needs to be pretty wide to fit the seed through (I had to widen the hole in the picture) but not so wide that steel loop falls out.

Now grab a length of galvanized steel wire, 12-15" long should do it.   Take one end and form a loop that is just slightly smaller than the caps diameter.  Then make a 90 degree angle in the wire at a spot that will allow the wire to pass through the center of the hole in the lid.

You'll repeat a similar process to attach the feeding bowl.  First poke a hole in the center of the soda bottle bottom and insert the steel wire. Form a loop that will support the bowl.  Make any adjustments that you need to make so that the bowl lies flat on the galvanized wire.  When determining how long to make the piece of wire between the lid and the bowl, keep in mind that the lid should be inside the bowl to control the flow of seed.

The assembled bowl piece should look like this.  When you attach it to the bottle you may need to wiggle it...just a little bit (name that tune) to adjust that wire out of the way of the bottle's rim.   Okay, last part.  You'll need a cage from which to hang your bottle.

I've used four different colors of fine craft wire - five feet of each color.  Holding all four pieces together, bend them in half and begin twisting them. You'll only need to twist enough to go around the neck of the bottle.  And, leave a small loop at the place that you bent the wires.   Pull the wires through the loop and bend them back on themselves.  


Here's were the fun begins, separate the wires so that you have four bundles of two (I separated mine by color). Now think chicken wire. Wrap two bundles around the bottle and twist them together a few times.  Bring those same bundles back in the same direction from which they came and twist them each to one of the remaining bundles.  Continue in this fashion until you get to the bottom of the bottle. (This might require some video!)

Now gather up all of your pieces, twist them together and form a closed loop for hanging. 

Fill 'er up, screw on the lid/bowl assembly and hang it in the garden.

Celebrate National Wild Bird Feeding Month

It's that time of the year!  Food sources are scarce and your local birds are looking for food much harder than they do throughout the rest of the year.  During the month of February the National Bird Feeding Society encourages citizens to not only feed their feathered friends but to provide shelter and water to help them survive one of the most difficult months of the year.

What better way to celebrate this event than with an upcycled bird feeder that you can get the kids involved in too?  Here's a quick tutorial for a homemade bird feeder that will reuse some of that plastic headed to the trash or recycle bin.

For my feeder I chose to start with a grande sized Starbucks cup; always in constant supply and currently not recyclable in my community.  Keep in mind that you can use just about anything that you can get your scissors through (soda bottle, milk jug, etc.).  So be creative, rescue some plastic and some birds!  To get started, cut the vessel of your choice into strips.  Be sure leave a couple of inches at the bottom to form the bowl that will hold your bird seed, like this:

Once you've made your strips you'll bend each strip back individually and secure it to the bottom outer edge of the feeder bowl.  Be as creative as you'd like!  You can punch some small holes in the both the bowl and the strips then  thread through a length of raffia or twine or you can simply use a glue gun like I did:

If you use a glue gun you'll have to hold each piece in place until it is dry before moving on to the next.  Once all of your strips are secure you'll end up with something that looks like this:

Now you just need to feed two pieces of twine or other decorative string through two of the loops that are equal distances from each other:

Tie off the strings and fill the cup with bird seed that will attract your local wildlife:

...and hang it outside, preferable near a water and/or shelter souce.

These cute little feeders are so easy to make and you have so many different containers to choose from you could make a whole garden filled with them!  At least it'll add a little color to the brown (or even snow covered) winter garden in your yard.

Here's another version that you can make from an aluminum can pretty easily. This colorful bird feeder is made out of an Arizona Iced Tea can. I added some beads and decorative wire for the hanger.  Use your imagination and dream up some fun feeders.  Leave a comment and let me know how you designed yours!