I’m unlocking a deep memory this week—I definitely made hanging birdseed ornaments when I was a kid, either in school or on my own at home (I grew up on a heavily wooded property and spent tons of time among the trees—their occupants were some of my best and only friends). Creating a lovely little bird feeder on a string is a fun, easy project to do solo or with kids—it’s especially effective in the winter when food is more scarce, but setting one out in early spring will still attract plenty of flying fauna. For this week’s Romanticize, our seed cake brings all the birds to the yard.
The Romanticize
Craft a homemade bird feeder.
The Advice
There are many ways to make hanging bird ornaments—the popular lard ball method, using suet, or even mixing in gelatin and shaping them with cookie cutters. Google is your friend, here—take a look at the various methods and pick one that calls to you. I personally prefer using a pine cone because it’s the most natural-looking and the one with the fewest ingredients.
If you choose the pine cone option and want to re-use the base once the birds have eaten away all the seed, boil it first—birds carry diseases that can be spread if it’s not sterilized between uses.
Again, for the pine cone version, make sure you forage picks with cones that are more open/spread out, so the peanut butter gets into the nooks and crannies and the birdseed sticks properly.
If your recipe calls for peanut butter, make sure it’s made from only peanuts with no added oils or sweeteners.
Here’s an Instagram reel I made of the building process, if you’d like to follow along.
The Inspiration
I stopped a few times during my pine cone foraging to enjoy the smell of the air, sweet with the scent of blooming daffodils and earthy petrichor. I grabbed two with the most open cones I could find that had stems still semi-attached (easier for string-tying!)
It’s a mild, cloudy early spring day (my favorite!) so I set up my feeder components—birdseed, peanut butter, pine cones, a butter knife, scissors, and string—on the back patio. I placed the seed in a shallow bowl so I could easily roll and coat the sticky cones, then spread the peanut butter atop them with a knife until they were fully covered. Once the seed was stuck on, I realized I should’ve tied the string on before the peanut butter step—it got a bit messy, but ultimately worked out
I hung one feeder from the pretty yellow-petaled forsythia bushes at the far side of the farm, and another on the white-flowered magnolia tree out front. I can’t wait to meet the feathered friends they attract!
I’d love to know the results of your Romanticize—feel free to share your experience in the comments, or tag me on Instagram. Until next Wednesday, fellow romantics!
I love this ❤️