Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The other day the Munchkin and I decided to get crafty and make a "milk jug birdfeeder" - of course we ended up grabbing more out of the recycle bin, so orange juice jugs and soda bottles of various sizes got put to use as well.

This started out as a project to make ONE - one for our friend who recently bought a new house. The plan was to make a small milk jug feeder decorated by the Munchkin, and to put the feeder and a bag of seed into a cleaned out laundry detergent bucket (for future seed storage). Of course The Munchkin had other plans - as we had to make them for EVERYONE!

We soon learned that the new "more eco friendly" little soda bottles are not good -the plastic is too thin and the bottles are too contoured to get a good hole for the birds to feed from.

We also learned that the "circles" embossed on the 1/2 gallon jugs might be a little high for the best placement, and that a very very new and very very sharp cutting blade is necessary to get through the plastic.

Mommy learned that my guy likes coloring with brown and purple, and telling Mommy to write silly things on the feeders, as if the birds can read. He's very good with markers, though, and was very careful to handle them and not get too much ink all over (which was good, as they were permanent markers!)

I did not get good pictures of our masterpieces all colored up - especially after "round 2" when Daddy was there to help. We ended up having to draw houses and flowers and more letters and spirals and different colors on all of them. Including coloring the caps!

We are happy with the results, and so are the recipients who have gotten theirs already. Now to just get them hung and see what the birdies think of these.