Cheerio Bird Feeders

Cheerio Bird Feeder - BlossomsAndPosies.com

Here’s a project that you can do with a little person in your house. If your little brother or sister can put a cheerio on a pipe cleaner then s/he can make these bird feeders!

Abbie says: For a simple, sturdy feeder, string cheerios onto pipe cleaners. Bend the pipe cleaners into whatever shape you want. Then twist the two ends of the pipe cleaners together. For a fancier looking feeder do the same thing, but with floral wire instead.

Mrs. Brown says: You can make these to be very pretty. Abbie made some to give as Christmas gifts, using floral wire and pretty ribbon. You can make them into any shape you want. The three dimensional shapes are a tiny bit more complex. Here’s how to make a sphere:

Sphere Cheerio Bird Feeder

Materials
cheerios
pipe cleaner
ribbon

Instructions

Lay three pipe cleaners out in an asterisk shape.

asterisk of 3 pipe cleaners - blossomsandposies.com

Twist each pipe cleaner around the center

twist pipe cleaners - blossomsandposies.com

Put cheerios on each “arm” of the asterisk, leaving about 1/2 to 1″ at the end.

put on cheerios 1 - blossomsandposies.com

put on cheerios 2 - blossomsandposies.com

all cheerios on - blossomsandposies.com

Pull up opposite arms and twist them together, continuing until you have three circles creating a spherical cage. You’ll end up with a lumpy bit of pipe cleaner because you’ll wrap all of the ends around each other to make the sphere stable.

make circles - blossomsandposies.com

more circles - blossomsandposies.com

Turn the sphere over so that the pipe cleaner lump is on the bottom. Attach a ribbon to the top. Sometimes, after the first knot, we just leave long ends to make tying it onto a branch a bit easier, but you could also make a full knotted loop now.

add ribbon - blossomsandposies.com

birdfeedersphere

Other shape ideas for Cheerio Bird Feeders

How about making a bird feeder in the shape of the first letter of your name? You could make hearts or spirals too.

Abbie’s little brother made a chain using half-sized pieces of pipe cleaner.

make a chain - blossomsandposies.com

cheerio chain - blossomsandposies.com

And if you want to make your bird feeder look a little more fancy, or bigger and longer, you can use floral wire instead of pipe cleaners. Pipe cleaners work best for little hands, but Abbie uses floral wire often. Below, the heart on the left is made with a pipe cleaner, and the heart on the right with floral wire. You can also see that on these Abbie made the loop ahead, instead of leaving it open to tie on.

cheerio hearts - blossomsandposies.com
Have fun and use your imagination! We would love to see what you come up with. You can post pictures of your creations on our facebook page!

About Abbie and Mrs. Brown

5 Responses to “Cheerio Bird Feeders”

Read below or add a comment...

  1. Mary says:

    these are adorable

  2. Sandy says:

    These are really cool!
    Ellen

  3. Cindy deRosier says:

    I’m the Editor of Fun Family Crafts and wanted to let you know that we have featured your bird feeder project! You can see it here:

    http://funfamilycrafts.com/cheerios-bird-feeder-sphere/

    If you have other kid-friendly craft tutorials, we’d love for you to submit them. If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can get one from the right side bar of your post above. Thanks for a great project idea!

Tell us what YOU think... leave a comment!

*