Valentine Treats for the Birds In Your Life

Hello There!

Can you believe Valentine’s is so close to being here?

I appreciate so much having something to look forward to in the middle of what has been a very blistery and cold winter for us. We all survived the blizzard of 2011 just fine and so did our Valentine’s treat for the birds! Seriously, it’s still hanging up waiting for some birds to enjoy!

This project was inspired by this birdfeeder from AlphaMom (I linked to these in a Friday Finds post as well).

Here’s the finished project the day before the blizzard hit!

The process is totally simple, but it does take some time for the gelatin to set. Instead of using cookie cutters like Alpha Mom recommends, I had heart shaped muffin tins, so we used those. This is truly an easy project to do with children too. My daughter was excited to make the birds a “surprise!”

Here are the ingredients: Bird seed, cooking spray, string, heart shaped muffin tins, and most importantly gelatine.

First we just mixed some gelatin into a 1/2 of cold water:

In the meantime we heated up 1 3/4 cup of water on the stove (some stray birdseed got in the pot too!). Once the water heated, we added the gelatin mixture too:

Then we mixed in 3 cups of bird seed. The mixture initially looked like this (pretty watery).

Then we took the mixture off the stove and the gelatin did it’s thing — it took probably 25 minutes for the mixture to come together.

Then we sprayed the muffin tins with nonstick spray and filled them with the birdseed mixture. I inserted straws into the top/center of each of the muffin tins to make a hole that we could use to eventually hang the feeders:

And a close up:

We put the muffin tins in the fridge and let them sit overnight. Then I just removed the straws and put string through the holes the straws made.  I was able to make about 10 bird feeders using these muffin tins.

I was thinking these would make a nice party favor or small gift for a nature lover. Dare I say it — sometimes it’s nice to give a nonfood item!

Happy Early Valentine’s Day!