How to Create a Homemade Hummingbird Feeder Out of a Plastic Bottle

Want to easily attract hummingbirds inexpensively and creatively? Follow this idea and watch the hummingbirds come along!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Newspaper
• 1 empty and clean 20 oz plastic bottle
• 1 sheet scrapbooking paper- either completely or predominantly red colored
• scissors
• decoupage glue
• paintbrush
• outdoor paint varnish (spray or paint-based)
• heavy-gauge wire
• nectar filler
• stopper tube from a small animal bottle (like from a water bottle found in a hamster cage)

1. 
    

   Place some newspaper down under your working area. Wrap the scrapbooking paper around your bottle to determine the amount you will need. You can cover it entirely or just the bottom portion. Use the scissors to cut off any unneeded portion. Using your paintbrush, apply decoupage glue to both sides of the paper. Wrap the paper around the bottle, using your fingers or the paintbrush to smooth it out. Let dry completely. Paint it with another layer of decoupage. Let dry again. It might be a little tacky to the touch. Spray or paint with the varnish and allow to dry.

2. 
    

   Using pliers, wind the wire around the thinner section of the bottle, between the middle and the end. Wind it several times around. With the bottle upside down, run the wire along the side and curve it to within an inch of the bottom. Run it along the opposite side of the bottle and secure it to the opposite side. Take another piece of wire and loop it onto the portion of the wire that is along the bottom of the bottle. Curve it into a hook that the bottle could be hung from.

3. Fill the bottle with the nectar.

4. 
    

   Insert the rubber stopper and tube into the bottle.

5. 
    

   Hang and watch the hummingbirds fly in!

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure your bottle is clean, empty, and without any external ads or paper.
• Be as creative as you desire. You might want creatively cut your paper with special scissors, add different papers, textures, or embellishments, add beads to your wires. You can even let kids decorate a bottle with papers or several coats of paint- just make it as red as possible to attract the hummingbirds.
• You might need to glue the stopper into the bottle. If you do this, you will need to drill a small hole into the top of your feeder so that you can refill the nectar.
• The tube may need to be adjusted to feed into the bottle correctly, at close to a 90 degree angle.
• It works even better if you can take a fake flower, cut into the center, and glue around the stopper end so it looks like the hummingbird is drinking from a flower.
• Don't use nectar with red dye!
• Hang at least 20 feet from windows and homes.