Transform Common Kitchen Items into Delightful DIY Bird Feeders

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As summertime kicks into gear, those of us lucky enough to have an outdoor space will be spending a lot more time enjoying it. Whether it’s a sprawling backyard or a compact patio, with warmer temperatures comes the opportunity to relax, socialize, barbecue, garden, and more. One fun project you can do outdoors that will upgrade all your future outside time is to DIY a repurposed bird feeder. (It’s also a good rainy-day craft; the point is that the results promise glorious sights and sounds for your outdoor space).

Inviting colorful creatures — who don’t eat your plants — makes whatever space you have lively and vibrant, and there are plenty of sustainable ways to reuse things and not spend extra money on doing so. You can use lemons to attract butterflies to your garden, for example. Egg cartons can be turned into bird feeders, too. This brings the excitement of birdwatching to your space as well as their lovely songs. You can even recycle old pie tins to keep squirrels and other critters away from the bird feeder. Egg cartons and pie tins are only the beginning, though. There are so many other options to make a bird feeder that’s all you and your garden, with a style you love. You can think about other recyclable items and make it a fun project for the kids, or you can get slightly more advanced with teacups or teapots, bundt pans, wine bottles, and muffin tins.

Using more disposable items like what would normally be considered single-use packaging to make a bird feeder boasts plenty of perks. It’s a meaningful way to recycle. You can make it a fun afternoon for your kids — and in doing so, teach them an important lesson about recycling. And the materials are forgiving: Make a bunch of bird feeders, feel free to start over with something else if you make a mistake, and change feeders out with the seasons.

A plastic bottle is much better off feeding birds than sitting in a landfill. Poke a hole in the bottom plus two at the top for drainage and for hanging with twine, respectively. Two more holes toward the bottom and middle allow you to slide sticks in so birds can land there; add holes about 2 inches above those so they can eat. Fill it with bird seed, hang it with twine, and wait for your winged new pals. Or, use a milk carton: Cut openings for the birds in fun shapes at each side and decorate the carton with paint, contact paper, or stickers. Poke a hole in the top for twine, fill with seed, and voila. Employ a tin can similarly: Poke two holes in a straight line at the top and bottom — you’ll be hanging the can sideways — and decorate however you like before filling with seed and threading with twine.

Turning a teacup and saucer or teapot into a bird feeder is a great way to keep these items around and useful, even if you’re shopping for the best teapots and kettles to upgrade your current brewing situation. It also pours a bit of your own personal aesthetic into your garden and is simply, undeniably charming — as fun as a painted milk carton can be, a teacup and saucer are elegant and unexpected.

With a teacup and saucer, the idea is to make it look like the birdseed is flowing from the cup onto the plate. You’ll need industrial-strength glue like this E6000 231020 adhesive with precision tips. Add a few drops to the saucer where the cup will rest on its side — plan on letting this sit for another day or so before hanging and adding seed. You can loop twine wrapped with ribbon or an S-hook through the cup’s handle to hang. A teapot on its side can hang the same way. It’s incredibly simple to turn one into a feeder — just glue some sort of stick or dowel at the bottom of the opening for a bird perch, fill with seed, and hang. To create more of a project, you can also decorate or paint the teapot. For some “Alice in Wonderland” magic, repurpose more of a tea set and hang a couple of teacup-and-saucer feeders with a teapot feeder from different branches of the same tree.

If it’s your bakeware you’re upgrading rather than your tea service, consider turning your Bundt pan into a bird feeder rather than tossing it. Its shape is not only perfect for filling bird seed, but it also has an elegant, birdbath-like shape, which only gets lovelier if you have a pan with a patterned mold like the Nordic Ware blossom Bundt pan. First, get to know the best method for cleaning a Bundt pan — it’s important you thoroughly clean this and anything else you’re turning into a bird feeder so birds only get their seed mix, and so you’re less likely to attract pests.

Of course, you can paint and decorate the Bundt pan like you would with other repurposed bird feeders. To hang it, measure a straight line across the top and mark it at each side near the rim. Use a drill to create holes at those marks. Planter hooks will do the trick here — grab HHTHH 16-inch black hanging basket chains that clasp onto the pan and hang from a branch or pole.

You can also use a Bundt pan to make a bird-feeder cake. Mix bird seed, nuts, and even dried fruit with melted suet or lard and pour the mixture into the Bundt. Let it harden in the refrigerator and then — carefully — pop the “cake” out of the pan. Thread twine through the center hole and hang the wreath-like formation for birds to enjoy, container-free.

There are plenty of ways to repurpose wine bottles — both parts of them. Before you throw your wine corks away, use them for everything from cooking to cleaning. And the last thing you should do before potentially disposing of wine bottles is upcycle them into bird feeders. This project is slightly more advanced, but results in a sweet backyard accoutrement that lasts.

You’ll need some wood pieces to create a holder for the bottle. This is a great way to use smaller scraps from a bigger DIY endeavor. The back and the bottom are the most important parts, so measure them to make sure they’re as tall and as wide as the bottle. You can cut other pieces for the side and top, too, to create designs like a little house, and paint and decorate the finished frame. To assemble everything, use nails and Gorilla wood glue. For the wine bottle, you’ll want it standing upside down on the bottom board, leaning against the back board at a slight angle so the feed flows out as birds eat it up. Nails for it to rest on at both spots will keep it in place. Fill the bottle with seed before locking it in. You can stand it somewhere relatively high up, like a sturdy patio railing, or make sure to include holes in your wood pieces for twine to hang.

You, of course, know that chief among the best uses for your muffin tin are, well, making muffins. But, again, if you’re upgrading your bakeware, another excellent purpose for the tin on its way out is to become a bird feeder. In fact, there are a few different ways to use a muffin tin as a destination eatery for birds.

You can measure, mark, and drill holes into the sides of the tin and hang with twine once the cups are filled with seed, just as you would with a Bundt pan. This also leaves plenty of opportunity for painting and decorating — you could bead your twine for hanging, for example. To get a little more complex, you can add a pan lid of some sort about a foot or so above the muffin tin, attaching them with more strategically placed holes and planter chains — this creates a gazebo-like look for the feeder. Or, also as with the Bundt pan, you can create cute little bird-feeder muffins by letting melted fat and seeds, nuts, and dried fruits harden in each cup. When you hang them from one tree with ribbon, they’ll create a Christmas-in-summer look. Pretty much anything with room for bird seed can be transformed into a bird feeder and given a second life, so enjoy using your imagination.