Hummingbird Feeder DIY

Hummingbirds, actually all birds, are quite delightful. I’ve never had an interest in birds. I didn’t not like them, I just thought, ‘oh, there’s a bird.’ Now I think ‘THERE’S A BIRD! AWWW…’  Caring about the environment has given me a whole new perspective. It’s quite nice. Most of the time. Anyway, back to the point. Because hummingbirds are so delightful, here is a feeder DIY, so that you can appreciate them and take care of their habitat. NOTE: It may take a couple of weeks for the hummingbird to the nectar and start showing up. Change the nectar once a week.

You will need:

A pop bottle, preferably red but I don’t know if there is such a thing. If you know of one let me know.

14- 20 spoons- again preferably red.  We used spoons from various other places like Cherry Berry, which  has red and pink, and other ice cream or frozen yogurt places. The point of upcycling is to use trash. I’m going to ask that you don’t go out and buy red spoons. Use ones that have already been used. Yeah, it sounds gross, but that is what soap is for.

A red lid- if you don’t have red spoons then get a flimsy red lid like one that are on gas stations to-go cups or even one of those metal peanut jar lids. Not something hard like peanut butter lids.

A candle, not a tea light

Hot glue gun

Pliers

A feeding tube– these you are allowed to buy.

A chain- my aunt had hanging plant pots that she was going to make into a chair pot and she didn’t need the chains any more so we used those. You could probably use any kind of chain.
Hummingbird Nectar

The handles of the spoons.

Wrap the chain around where the lid ring had gone and at the curve of the bottle near the bottom. Connect the two. The feeder tube should be level. Fill it up all the way and it will act as a vacuum to keep it from dripping.

Or this. I don’t know why, but my aunt and I love these. If I had been at home doing these and they did this I probably would have cried with frustration, but my aunt and I just burst out laughing. We’re trying to figure out someway to use them, so if this happens to you, keep them because we may come up with something.

You can also try to do these in a toaster oven. Beware. You have to watch it every second because it takes around 3 minutes or longer depending on what kind of spoons you have and if you look away for one second you could turn around and it will look like this.

And here is the final picture with the feeder tube in it. Not too shabby, right? This was our first one, so it has the unperfect pink flowers and it doesn’t have the red lid either.

This is the first row, plus one on the second.

Step 6- After you put on each spoon reinforce it with hot glue. As a general rule, the stick of the spoon should have melted enough to stick to the bottle when it dries, but it still needs to be reinforced.

Step 5- Place the spoon around the mouth of the bottle in whatever arrangement you want. I made two rows and used about seven spoons on each row. On the back row I staggered the seven spoons between the spaces of the front row.

Step 4- After you have the bowl part bended and rounded as you want it, then cut off the handle about an inch or so away from the bowl. Put it in the fire and get it hot enough that it starts to droop. The heat may burn, so you may want to use pliers. Don’t use gloves because they’ll stick to the plastic.

Step 3- This is what you want your petals to look like. Up until the other day, when my aunt and I were doing our recent version, the pink spoons were giving me a rotten time. The red spoons were always perfect, but the pink ones just wouldn’t do anything but separate or just turn droopy. Miraculously, I managed to get the last set to look similar to the red one. How exactly I did this I don’t know, but I do know that I moved it around a lot more. I had tried this method before, but for some reason it just worked this time. Keep this in mind when your melting spoons. Experiment and if all else fails then try to bend it with pliers.

Step 2- Melt the spoons. For those of you who were here for the flower project or who did the flower project then you know that this seems to be an art. I’ve found that not all plastic spoons melt the same. Don’t hold the spoons in the flame. It’ll give it a burnt look.

Step 1- Take off the little ring that meets with the lid and the bottle wrapper. We got the sticky part off with goo gone, which you can get from lots of places. It’s just an adhesive type remover. Take your red lid and cut a hole in the middle so that it is wide enough to fit over the mouth piece of your bottle. You can cut petals if you want or leave it. Reinforce it with hot glue.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page