Projects - Old & New - Start to Finish:
#2 Milk Carton Birdfeeder
I first got the idea for this bird feeder when I was looking into ways to recycle our empty milk cartons and orange juice containers. We go through about two cartons of soy milk and a carton of orange juice a week, between myself and Emilie (my daughter). Ultimately, we are left with quite a few cartons. I felt really bad throwing them away, and the town I live in has a pretty rigorous process for attaining a recycling bin that gets picked up once a week. On top of that there are zoning issues with the location of the property, etc. With that said, I decided to join Pinterest and try to see what fun recycling projects I could discover and the rest is history!
1. Cut card stock so that it fits to cover all exposed sides of carton.
2. Using your glue stick, glue card stock onto carton using lots of glue.
3. After glue dries, pick a paint color and using a larger paint brush cover as much of carton as you would like covered.
4. Once carton is covered paint color, let dry.
5. When carton has dried, you can either continue painting with other colors, or you can start applying the face.
6. To apply the face you will need two of your bottle caps, some of your scraps of card stock, and a piece of orange or yellow construction paper for mouth, second piece of construction paper of a different color, as well as your glue.
7. Cut two circles out of your scraps of card stock so that they fit inside the bottle caps. Glue or tape into bottle caps. Add black dots for eyes.
8. Line up bottle caps on your alternative color construction paper. Glue or tape bottle caps together onto the paper. Using scissors cut the construction paper around the bottle caps in whatever shape or width you choose.
9. Using double-sided tape or glue, attach the construction paper/bottle cap eyes to the milk carton on which ever side you choose.
10. Once eyes are attached, take your orange or yellow construction paper and hold one of the corners up to the eyes. Cut the corner off into a triangular piece for the beak, once you have decided how large you want it.
11. Glue the beak underneath the eyes as close or far away as you would like. Take your Mod Podge and one of your larger paint brushes and paint over the face with a thick layer of Mod Podge. This will hold the face in place and protect it from the elements outside.
12. Once the face is attached and the Mod Podge is dry, use the Mod Podge to coat the entire carton sealing all of the edges of the card stock where the glue stick didn't stick efficiently enough. You can apply two to four coats of Mod Podge for a more secure and shiny finish.
13. When you know that the Mod Podge has dried, grab two popsicle sticks, some more of your left over card stock, some super glue and your scissors. Flip over your carton so that you are looking at the bottom.
14. Using the super glue attach two of your popsicle sticks to underside of the carton making sure to leave enough sticking out so that the birdies have a place to perch. After the glue dries, cover your entire piece of card stock with Mod Podge and paint over the popsicle sticks. The card stock should completely cover the bottom of the carton and with several layers of Mod Podge applied should also help to secure popsicle sticks into place.
15. You can optionally decorate the popsicle sticks to make them look like feet by using any more card stock you have left and some more of your yellow or orange construction paper that you, no doubt, have left over.
16. Once your carton is painted, face is applied, feet are applied and you have covered it in several layers of Mod Podge that have all dried, you can now take your very sharp knife or razor and cut out wings on either side of the carton, and holes in the back and/or front for the birdies to have access to the feed.
**Just make sure your holes are not too close to the bottom of the carton or the bird feeder will not hold any bird feed.**
Directions for creating your own bird feeder:
Supplies:
I really enjoyed this project, because there really was nothing that I needed to buy to complete it. In addition to that, I didn't read any direction either. I saw a picture of a bird feeder that looked like it was made out of a milk carton and I took it from there.
The Bird Feeder Crafts ideas came from Happyhooligans.ca and I am sure they had some great instructions for completing the project, but I just decided to wing it based on what I saw in the picture. So, feel free to check them out, or keep reading!
On that note, this is a list of everything that I used for supplies, but really you have a lot of options on what you can use in place of some of these things if you don't necessarily have Mod Podge™on hand or popsicle sticks, for example.
What I used:
- An empty, clean soy milk carton
- 1.5 pieces of card stock
- 1 Elmer's glue stick
- Green, Purple, Blue & Yellow acrylic paint
- 1-2 paint brushes of varying sizes
- 2 bottle caps (in addition to the one that came with the carton)
- 2-4 pieces of construction paper
- 2 popsicle sticks
- Scissors
- A sharp knife
- Something to hang it (rope, cable ties, wire)
Variations to list of supplies:
- Soy milk carton, orange juice carton, milk/juice plastic jug
- Elmer's glue stick, gorilla glue, cement glue, super glue, double-sided tape, regular Elmer's glue
- Acrylic paint, puffy paint
- Paint brushes, Q-tips, your hands
- Bottle caps, can tabs, buttons, corks (cut in half)
- Construction paper, computer paper, newspaper, paper bags, wrapping paper, leaves (not dry)
- Popsicle sticks, straws, take-out chop sticks, plasticware knives, pencils, kabob sticks
Directions step-by-step:
1. Cut card stock so that it fits to cover all exposed sides of carton.2. Using your glue stick, glue card stock onto carton using lots of glue.
3. After glue dries, pick a paint color and using a larger paint brush cover as much of carton as you would like covered.4. Once carton is covered paint color, let dry.
5. When carton has dried, you can either continue painting with other colors, or you can start applying the face.
6. To apply the face you will need two of your bottle caps, some of your scraps of card stock, and a piece of orange or yellow construction paper for mouth, second piece of construction paper of a different color, as well as your glue.
7. Cut two circles out of your scraps of card stock so that they fit inside the bottle caps. Glue or tape into bottle caps. Add black dots for eyes.
8. Line up bottle caps on your alternative color construction paper. Glue or tape bottle caps together onto the paper. Using scissors cut the construction paper around the bottle caps in whatever shape or width you choose.9. Using double-sided tape or glue, attach the construction paper/bottle cap eyes to the milk carton on which ever side you choose.
10. Once eyes are attached, take your orange or yellow construction paper and hold one of the corners up to the eyes. Cut the corner off into a triangular piece for the beak, once you have decided how large you want it.
11. Glue the beak underneath the eyes as close or far away as you would like. Take your Mod Podge and one of your larger paint brushes and paint over the face with a thick layer of Mod Podge. This will hold the face in place and protect it from the elements outside.
12. Once the face is attached and the Mod Podge is dry, use the Mod Podge to coat the entire carton sealing all of the edges of the card stock where the glue stick didn't stick efficiently enough. You can apply two to four coats of Mod Podge for a more secure and shiny finish.
13. When you know that the Mod Podge has dried, grab two popsicle sticks, some more of your left over card stock, some super glue and your scissors. Flip over your carton so that you are looking at the bottom.
14. Using the super glue attach two of your popsicle sticks to underside of the carton making sure to leave enough sticking out so that the birdies have a place to perch. After the glue dries, cover your entire piece of card stock with Mod Podge and paint over the popsicle sticks. The card stock should completely cover the bottom of the carton and with several layers of Mod Podge applied should also help to secure popsicle sticks into place.
15. You can optionally decorate the popsicle sticks to make them look like feet by using any more card stock you have left and some more of your yellow or orange construction paper that you, no doubt, have left over.
16. Once your carton is painted, face is applied, feet are applied and you have covered it in several layers of Mod Podge that have all dried, you can now take your very sharp knife or razor and cut out wings on either side of the carton, and holes in the back and/or front for the birdies to have access to the feed.
**Just make sure your holes are not too close to the bottom of the carton or the bird feeder will not hold any bird feed.**
That's everything!
Let me know how it turns
out for you in the comments.
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