Easter Egg Birdseed Ornaments
Easter is just around the corner and I’ve got a fun activity you can do with your kids this weekend. If you’ve been following us from the beginning you may remember the Birdseed Ornaments I wrote about at Christmastime. Well this is a twist on those same ornaments…Easter Egg birdseed ornaments to hang outside that say “welcome spring” to your birds. As I mentioned in the previous post, these birdseed ornaments are really simple to make! Definitely a kid-friendly project that the whole family can do together. I have to say, the results were cuter than I even imagined and I love looking outside at all the brightly colored raffia eggs adorning my tree as the birds draw near.
So here’s what you do…
- Mix ¾ cup flour, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup corn syrup in a bowl.
- Next, stir in 4 cups of birdseed.
- Then it’s time to mold them into eggs. You will need plastic Easter eggs for this step.
- Spray the inside of your plastic eggs with cooking spray to ensure that the mixture doesn’t get stuck and makes it easy for it to come out when you are done.
- Scoop the mixture into both sides of the plastic egg…a little excess is actually good because you will close the egg up and you want it tightly filled. Excess will squeeze out the sides and you will just wipe it off.
- Make sure you close the egg completely so that you make sure the top and bottom half are firmly packed together.
- After you have all of your eggs filled and closed up (btw…this recipe made 18 small eggs), you will then want to open one end of the plastic egg. I suggest opening the smaller, bottom end of the egg. You have to do this gingerly and carefully so as not to pull the 2 halves apart. But hopefully the one end will come out smoothly. You may have to gently pat a little at the seam to help maintain the shape. My big “ah-ha” moment in getting these to keep shape and not break apart while drying was to put the plastic egg with one half removed and set it in my mini muffin tin. Keeping the mixture both in the mold and upright allowed for support and gravity to help keep its shape…..yet having half of the plastic egg removed allowed the mixture to dry faster and not get completely stuck in two parts the plastic egg in the end.
- You will let them dry like this for a couple of hours…..or maybe just an hour….I’m not really sure on the exact timing as we went off to do some things in the yard and came back to take them out and flip them over and it was almost two hours later but they were good and ready then. So then you will take them out of the second half of the plastic egg and place the “naked birdseed egg” back in the muffin tin with the dry side down and the newly released side up to continue drying for an hour or so.
- To hang these, I suggest using bright spring colored raffia or yarn to make them festive when you hang them. (1) Cut two pieces to about 30-32″ and tie the two pieces together with a knot in the center. (2) For this next part, you will probably need two sets of hands…..at least I did. While one person is holding the egg the other will lay the knot on the center of the base of the egg and spread the raffia out like an X . (3) You will then let the raffia drape around to the top of the egg forming a cradle of sorts. (4) At this point you take two strands in each hand and use them to tie a tight double knot at the top of the egg. (5) After that, I tied a bow on the top of the egg with the raffia because I wanted the extra detail and more color. (6) From there I took the tails of the bow and tied the ends of them in a double knot to create a loop that the ornaments could be hung by on the tree.
So there you have it…a fun and relatively easy activity that you can do with (or without) your kiddos THIS weekend! Or it could be a fun after school activity this next week….still in time for Easter. What a cute Easter decoration to draw the birds to your yard. I feel certain the birds will be thanking you too!
Have fun with this!
Happy Easter…Happy Spring…Happy, Happy Everything!
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I’m going to do this with the girls on Sunday! Thanks for such a cute idea! Xoxoxo. Sue
Thanks for the great idea! Trying this today!
Caty…so glad you found us here at RYGblog! Thanks for your comments! Hope you guys have fun making these….and your birds enjoy them too! Have a great weekend!
Thanks you for sharing this bird seed recipe. I finally have a bird seed project that doesn’t use peanut butter. My grandson has a peanut allergy which makes many food projects impossible to do. This will be a fun project to do with him year round. Although the egg shape and colored raffia suggests spring and summer, I can see this project in fall and winter (xmas) colors. It is important to help birds eat in the winter.
Cindy…I am so glad you found this peanut-free bird seed project. Our oldest daughter has a peanut allergy too… so we had to find an alternative for making bird feeders without peanut butter….and here you found it! We have also done used this same recipe to make them other times of the year in different shapes using cookie cutters. Check out our other blog post “Birdseed Ornaments…Christmas Fun!” that will instruct you in how we altered the project using cookie cutters. And completely agree that we need to care for our bird friends during the winter…..which is why we have made them at Christmastime and packaged them in cellophane bags and given them as gifts to neighbors, teachers and grandparents. Hope you and your grandson have fun making these!
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Mine are not hard: the shape is ok but they are very delicate: dont know if they will hold together when i start to but the hanger on: help?
Hey Peri, thanks for reaching out. So sorry you’re having trouble keeping your birdseed ornaments together. Ours have always held together pretty well. Maybe you could add more birdseed and/or syrup to decrease the proportion of water. That’s the only thing I can think of. Please let us know. Take care, D.
[…] 12 – Make Easter egg birdseed ornaments. […]
These are so cute!! I want to make them this week and see how they do. Do your’s fall out of the string when the birds eat them?? Thanks for the awesome directions!
Hey Christie…thanks for reaching out…and I’m glad you were inspired by Britt’s Easter Egg Birdseed Ornaments. Perhaps instead of making these now you could make her Christmastime ornaments as a test case later this year. You can find them here: https://redeemyourground.com/christmastime-fun-birdseed-ornaments/.
Anyway…yes, depending on how the birds go about eating them, at some point some of the birdseed ornament falls to the ground. A heavy rain will also speed up the process. Regardless, they look great when they are hanging…and even if clumps of birdseed fall to the ground…the birds don’t care, they’ll be attracted to the birdseed wherever it is. Hope you enjoy making yours and that you have a great rest of your week.
Take care, D.
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Easter is coming. Love it. Thank you
So glad you liked the Easter Egg Birdseed Ornament post Mary Pat! I’ll pass on the good word to Britt! Which reminds me, I should repost it this week so that folks have it in mind in time for Easter! Thanks again and take care, D.
[…] 6. Bird Feeders – Last but not least, plastic eggs are perfect for making these awesome bird feeders! […]
Just wondering, are you certain the flour is healthy for the birds to eat?
Lucy, thanks so much for reaching out. I can honestly say that until you asked the question I never asked it of myself. I guess because you see so many people feeding birds baked products (i.e., w some amount of flour in them…like bread). I did a little bit of research and although some people voiced the same concern, no place did I find it said that it was bad for them. Several sources suggested not to feed birds TOO much bread because it has little nutritional value; but since these birdseed ornaments are made up of primarily seeds, that wouldn’t apply here. I guess you could try the recipe without flour…but they may just fall apart. Anyway, that’s what I learned…and THANKS again for reaching out and asking. Take care, D.
I’m going to try this in a square container and then put the dried block in my suet feeder! Thanks for the recipe!
Love this idea and will have fun with my kiddos making these. We live in South Texas and around Easter time our area uses confetti eggs “cascarones” to celebrate. One year my kids and I made the cascarones using bird seed as the filler (confetti) and recycled tissue paper and water/flour mixture for the paste. This allowed our celebration to be earth friendly and a lot easier to remove than the confetti.
What a great idea, Susie! Thanks for sharing. I hope you and your family have a great Easter this year…we plan to! Take care, Britt & Doug
To tie one handed, couldn’t you place the X of the 2 strands of ribbon in the bottoms of your muffin tin and place the seed egg on top, then bring up the ribbon to the top and tie?
Thanks for the suggestion, Susan! Hope you’re well. Take care, Britt & Doug
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Thank you for the idea and recipe. We tried making these yesterday. 3 and 4 year olds. While they enjoyed making the mixture and filling the egg shell, it was difficult for them to finish it off. So I let them go back to playing and I finished them off. Today I will tie the raffia on them to hang up outside. I myself enjoyed it very much.
So glad you enjoyed making the birdseed ornaments, Adria…oh, and your kids too! Take care, D.
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[…] month, we invite your children’s ministry, or parents at home with their children, to follow this recipe to make Easter Egg Birdseed Ornaments. Through this project, children can feel more connected to the nature in their own backyard or […]
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[…] month, we invite your children’s ministry, or parents at home with their children, to follow this recipe to make Easter Egg Birdseed Ornaments. Through this project, children can feel more connected to the nature in their own backyard or […]