How to Make Edible Gifts for Birds & Squirrels

Keep the birds well fed this winter.

A fun activity at a winter party for children is to make edible gifts for birds and squirrels. You can decorate a small tree with the gifts or let the children take their creations home to hang on their own trees. Set up a table outdoors for this messy activity, and be sure to have plenty of wipes for sticky hands. Serve bird-themed refreshments when the gifts are finished.

Things You'll Need

• Oranges
• Knife
• Hole punch
• Suet
• Birdseed
• Sunflower seeds
• Raisins
• Floral wire stems
• 12 small pine cones
• Peanut butter
• Ribbon
• Pretzels
• Minidoughnuts

Instructions

1. Cut oranges in half and scoop out the pulp to create a cup from the peel. Punch three evenly spaced holes a half inch below the cut edge of each orange cup. Do this before the party.

2. Mix a cup of finely ground suet with a cup of birdseed, a cup of sunflower seeds and a cup of raisins. Suet is available from a butcher. This is enough to fill four orange cups. Adjust the number of oranges and other ingredients based on the number of guests.

3. Fill the orange cups with the suet mixture.

4. Run the end of a stem of floral wire through each hole in the orange cup and twist it back around the rest of the wire to hold it in place. Twist the other ends of the three wires together to make a hanger for the cup.

5. Twist a piece of wire around the top of a pine cone. Spread peanut butter on the cone and roll it in birdseed.

6. Make pretzel garlands by stringing small pretzels onto lengths of ribbon.

7. Run a 12-inch-long piece of ribbon through the hole in a minidoughnut and knot the ends together to make a hanging gift.

Tips & Warnings

• Leave a handle on the orange when you cut it to form a basket instead of a cup. Hang the basket by running a ribbon through the handle.

References

• "Southern Living"; Christmas for the Birds; December 1996