How to Make Birdseed Wreaths

Making birdseed wreaths with the children after Christmas has become a tradition at our house.  The children love it and it’s a fast little project, for their sometimes short attention span. Not only are they making birdseed wreaths, they’re making memories….of Christmas time at NaaNaa’s.  (pronounced with a long ‘A’) short for Renee…

Birdseed Wreaths is a misnomer because we actually use fruit rather than birdseed. But they are food for the birds…so….  work with me, here….  And, stay tuned….we will be making birdseed ornaments next!

Birdseed Wreaths are a great way to use up any old fruit that’s past it’s prime.  Any fruit you have on hand will work.  My apples were getting wrinkly and oranges and grapes were drying out, so they got tossed into the mix. I might even add some old dried fruit left from last year.  And the birds love some pomegranate.

What you’ll need:

Fruit: grapes, apples, oranges, cranberries….anything you have on hand will do. Popcorn, crackers, dried fruit etc….

Florist’s wire

Ribbon, if you like

Sweet children….a must

Begin by slicing and cubing apples, popping popcorn, and gathering grapes and cranberries anything you think the birds would enjoy eating.

I use florist’s wire and let the kids thread the fruit in any order they please.  They string each wire about 1/2 of the way full. (sometimes they thread it completely full!)

Then we bend it into a circle and twist the ends together. Lastly we tie on some leftover ribbon from Christmas.  Nothing fancy,  just let the children get a little creative. Ribbon is not necessary, but the children like to use leftover ribbons and bows.

Florist’s wire makes it easy for little hands to thread because it’s stiff enough to hold still and hold the fruit. I bend a little hook at one end of the wire to keep fruit from falling off.

This is serious business….

But not so serious….you can’t sneak a snack in….

You can tie ribbon on the wreath to hang from, tho that is not necessary.

The circle of wire is perfect for hanging.

Sometimes we get creative and hang other cool things on the tree…. like one year…. we hung empty red,  green and silver aluminum Coke bottles! I rinsed them out after our Christmas party and tied pipe cleaners around the neck and hung them on the tree. Perfect little festive touch!

This year I collected stems of red berries from my yard to add to the tree. One year the children added their  leftover stands of popcorn from their own Christmas tree. It’s up to you.

I don’t have any low branches in my yard to hang things from, so, I save my Christmas tree and prop it up outside to use for the birdseed wreaths….but if you do, that’s great. If not, save your tree and let the birds play in it…they LOVE a Christmas tree!

And the little ones love to decorate it for them!

We named this mockingbird the ‘the Sheriff’  because he likes to keep everybody ‘moving along…”! He runs all the little birds off….but they found a way into the inner parts of the tree, where the Sheriff can’t see them!

Gather up your sweet little ones and make some memories!

It’ll make the birds happy, too!