Paper Towel Roll Bird Feeders

It's been soooooooooo hot outside!  The forecast for next week isn't looking much better.

Since it's too out for the little guys to be outside for very long, we've been trying to get in touch with our creative selves indoors.  We did a few crafts this week to keep us busy.  

One of our crafts this week was making a paper towel roll bird feeder.  If I were a really good blogger, I would have taken pictures of every step along the way, but I'm not, and I just snapped a few pictures when we were pretty much done.  


Here's how we made them:

1.  Gather materials:

• Paper towel rolls
• Scissors
• Creamy peanut butter
• Knife
• bird seed
• string

2.  Put wax paper over a jelly roll pan 
3.  Pour birdseed on top of the wax paper and even it out with your hand
4.  Cut paper towel rolls into thirds
5.  Spread creamy peanut butter onto rolls
6.  Roll peanut butter covered rolls into the birdseed (This, of course, was Janie's favorite part!)
7.  Put the string through the rolls to hang in the branches.  (Otherwise, you can slide them over a small branch.)

Good news:  They turned out exactly how we thought they would, and Janie loved making them.

Bad news:  Our feathered friends never came around to find them the first day.  Then came the second day, and we found this...

This squirrel found a feeder in one of the burning bushes outside of the family room window, pulled it off of the branch, and brought it onto the deck.  He took his sweet time eating off all of the peanut butter and the seeds, leaving behind the cardboard and string.  I'm glad someone enjoyed it!


The remaining feeders are still in our bushes, waiting for Mr. Squirrel or a feathered friend to find them.