Toilet Paper Tube Bird Feeders

Today was one of those days...  Both of my daughters were home and were at each other since their feet hit the floor this morning.  After getting their second requested morning snack around (no worries - they were still breakfast foods), I was thinking we would need to find an activity today that would get them excited about something (other than watching their favorite morning cartoons) and to keep their idle little hands busy.

Let me preface our choice with this small fact: I am really NOT a huge fan of crafts.  When my older daughter says (whines) "Mooooom, can we do a craft?", I cringe inside.  Remember the little tidbit about me not being very creative in my "About Me" section..?  Well, unless I have something simple and planned out to do, I try to suggest other activities like coloring or paper dolls or making pictures for friends - ANYTHING but a craft I have to orchestrate.  Don't get me wrong - I love spending time with my kids.  It's just that I prefer to spend our time together doing something that doesn't require glue and glitter.  So, today, when I suggested we get dressed to shop for a few craft 'ingredients', the idea was welcomed with warm smiles.

This easy (and fun!) activity requires only three things, one of which we seem to have an abundance of (do we use more than the average family, I wonder?!?)...

Materials:

Empty toilet paper tubes
Peanut butter
Bird seed
Twine or yarn (optional)

Directions:

All you need to do for this activity is spread a thin, fairly even layer of peanut butter all over the toilet paper tube and then roll the peanut-buttery tube in bird seed.  Aaaah, I love this type of 'craft'!   





Even little hands were able to do this.  Although, we did stick to chunky, kid-friendly knives.

We chose to use a paper plate for mess control during the PB spreading and for dumping the bird seed onto for easy, less messy rolling (read: no extra dishes - except for maybe the knives).

 

We also chose to use yarn to hang our feeders, as we tend to have a teensy bit of a squirrel problem.  The other option is to simply slide the tube so an empty branch goes right through it.





At first, I punched holes in each end, thinking I would put the yarn through.  NOT thinking, however, about how much easier it really was to just pull a piece of yarn through the tube and tie the ends together.  Perfect!

We don't have a ton of snow on the ground right now, but I bet the birds still appreciate their "free lunch"!  Luckily, for them - and for us - we continue to unroll more and more of this craft's key building material, so I'm sure we'll be making these through the winter for our feathered friends.

Peanut butter and bird seed vs. glue and glitter - hmmm...  Even though this was a little messy, it was a great way to recycle our TP tubes and my little ones had a great time doing it.  Okay, I did too...but don't tell anyone!

Thanks to The Moffatt Girls for this great idea.