How to Make a Teacup Bird Feeder

Birds can add colorful life to your garden and provide you with hours of enjoyable bird watching. Birdhouses and feeders can also liven up the garden while providing much needed food and water for birds in your area. Turn a china teacup and saucer into bird feeders that can be placed anywhere in your garden. It's fun, easy and inexpensive.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Teacup and saucer
• Length of copper pipe
• Copper pipe end cap
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Mallet

1. Select a teacup and saucer with a pattern you find appealing and that complements your garden's design. Antique and second hand stores are a good source of inexpensive cups and saucers. They often have unique dishes with older or discontinued patterns.
2. Warm up your hot glue gun and make sure there is enough glue in the gun. When the glue begins to seep out the tip of the glue gun, use it to attach a copper pipe end cap to one end of a copper pipe. The pipe should be between two and four feet long. Both the pipe and end cap and can be found in home improvement stores.
3. Use the hot glue to attach the bottom of the saucer to the top of the end cap. Only use as much glue as is needed to cover the end cap. Too much glue makes for a messy clean up later on.
4. Attach the bottom of the teacup to the saucer with the hot glue. Try not to get glue on the sides of the teacup.
5. Select a location in your garden to place the feeder and stake the copper pipe into the ground by driving the pipe down with a mallet or brute strength. If the ground is hard, it may be helpful to dampen the soil before seating the pipe.
6. Fill the cup with bird seed. Any type of bird seed will do, but there are varieties that some birds enjoy more than others. If you want to attract a certain type of bird, ask your local pet store what type of bird seed they recommend.
7. Sit back and enjoy watching the birds flock to your new feeder!

Tips & Warnings

• Give the birds a few days to find and become accustomed to the new feeder. It will not take long before the birds make the new feeder a regular stop.
• Make it a point to keep the feeder stocked with fresh seed. The birds will come to rely on your feeder as a ready source of food.
• Empty the feeder and clean it at least once a week to prevent germs from lingering and fostering illness, mold and mildew due to clumps of wet seed. It will also keep the feeder free of any contamination from feces or other unhealthy agents that may be left behind by the birds, squirrels or other garden visitors.