I recently took a trip up to Northern California to visit my friend Lucas. He lives in a small town called Tailorsville in Northern California with 150 people. I think he makes it a booming 151 people now? He was a Southern California guy who decided to change his lifestyle. He says he’s learned to appreciate a slower, less traffic world and I don’t blame him for that one bit. It is a lovely place to visit and I always enjoy catching up with Lucas.
For this trip we had no plans mapped out so it was relaxing and creative. Lucas had made bird feeders out of thrift store dishes and he wanted to add to them. We had to travel 15 mins to the next town to go to the thrift store in Greenville. Everybody knows everyone everywhere and since Lucas is a 6’3″ red head, he’s not easily forgotten. We enter the store to welcome greetings from townsfolk and proceed to buy half of their dish supply. One of the retired gentleman rung our purchases up and did some quick calculations that I didn’t quite follow and came to an amount that would have been about $.10 a piece I think? We happily made a little larger donation and packed up our bird feeder treasures.
We glued a bunch of dishes together with E6000 glue. It definitely should be used in a well ventilated area, preferably outdoors. Try to be neat but apply a generous amount. Use removable tape as needed to secure pieces while drying. Let dry for 24 to 48 hours. (The E6000 with the black cap is clear glue, the white cap is white glue. The white glue does not dry clear so only use on white dishes unless you prefer the look of toothpaste binding your bird feeders together?!)
You just need to be creative about how you want to make your dish bird feeders and it will be determined by what you find at your local thrift store or if you happen to have odds and end pieces hanging around your house.
Once you have bird feeders, you can fill them with appropriate bird seeds. Lucas did some research for a mix of seeds and dried worms (yuck!) that would attract blue jays and various birds in his area.
We made a birdseed cake kind of mixture with lard, cornmeal and lots of bird seed fixins. It’s simple, melt the lard, then add ingredients to create a pretty thick paste.
You can then spoon in the mixture into your feeders and let it dry and harden so the seeds aren’t falling out of the containers if they are hung from cup handles. The spoon handles of these feeders act as a ledge when it’s hanging from the handle that the bird can sit on while the eat the seed.
The mix of dish bird feeders are so cute in the large tree at his house. The birds seem to love the food especially since it was still winter and they got quite a bit of rain and snow this season.
Lucas hung most of the bird feeders with old belts from the thrift store which added to eclectic country charm in the back yard. I made a couple for my bungalow porch as well. It was a really easy project. I’ve seen them made with spoons for hooks and more complicated combinations of dishes but I like our simple and effective feeders. The birds do too as the dishes run out of food quickly! It’s always sign of a good restaurant even if it is for the birds!