Birds Love Stale Bread

My youngest graduated from Pre-K this week. So Thursday was his first day of "summer". We made a stale bread basket for the birds with our new free time.

We had these stale sandwich rounds in the pantry. So, that got me to thinking about feeding the birds rather than throwing them out.

We also have this junk pile in our back yard that comes in pretty handy now and then for crafty projects. The draw back is that it's also a popular hang out for all the spiders in the yard. Big spiders.

We also, also have this rusty squeaky pair of needle nose pliers/wire cutters. Those are paint sticks there at the top of the photo. My little one painted those green for our little project.

It was decided we needed our basket to be about 5" by 5".

With our trusty wire cutters we(I) cut a piece(eye-balled, as always) of chicken wire. Then went to work bending the ends together and twisting the ends around each other to make a three sided basket.

This part is not kid friendly. The wires are sharp and I did come away with a few wounds. I made sure all the sharp ends were turned in with my needle nose pliers. This took a little time but the weather was nice and it was good outside time.

Our finished basket is roughly 5" by 5" by 1". The top is left open, of course. We had ideas of the paint sticks being bottom and sides but this project took it's own direction. So we glued the sticks together to make a roof of sorts. Then drilled holes on each side so it could be attached to the basket.

We ran jute through the holes and tied it to the basket. A big ole dab of hot glue will keep the knots from coming un-knotted. Another long piece of jute was tied to each side of the basket for hanging in the tree.

I made an S hook out of some sturdy wire that fits around the branch and leaves a hook for the feeder to hang on. That allows for the basket to be taken down and easily replenished with stale bread.

There ya go! A stale bread basket for your birds.

This is definitely a project that requires adult help but the kids like feeding the birds and refilling the basket. Plus I can watch the birds right out my desk window when I'm day dreaming.

I'll be sharing at these fabulous blogs.