Hummingbird Feeder

As with most of my ideas this one was not mine but I “improved” it or in Princess’s words it doesn’t look like the picture – so sad. This idea came from the May 2010 of My Big Backyard, I thought this would be a great rainy day project or in our case a very hot day project. I also put this off because I needed a plastic bottle with a cap, which we never have. This weekend we finally finished our jug ‘o’ honey and had the prefect plastic jug for our hummingbird feeder.

Materials Needed:
Plastic jug with a screw cap
Drinking Straw (ours was from Wendy’s – and no I have no idea how long we have had it)
Exacto Knife (for cutting the hole)
Ruler
Puffy Paints
Permanent Markers
Craft Foam (optional)
Hot Glue/Hot Glue Gun (it just said waterproof glue – I chose this)
String or wire to hang feeder
Hummingbird Nectar (recipe included)

The Princess and our jug.

Wash and dry plastic jug. Mark 1″ from the bottom and make a hole the size of the drinking straw with an exacto knife.

Note the straw the Princess is holding.

Cut one end of the drinking straw on a 45 degree angle, insert the cut end of the drinking straw through the hole. Hold in place and hot glue around the outside. Once it is glued in place put water in the container to check for leaks, dump water and re-glue that area if there are leaks – repeat process until there are no leaks.

Checking for leaks.

Still no leaks!

Once the straw is glued in place it is time to decorate the feeder. The Princess really wanted to make a foam flower but I don’t have any craft foam, so I had to pull out the big guns PUFFY PAINT. She had a hummingbird stencil so we drew the stencil and then painted the hummingbird with puffy paint.

The Princess was getting a little frustrated that you couldn’t see the Hummingbird with the magic markers.

A view from above before I pulled out the Puffy Paint!

She of course wanted flowers so we made several flowers on the feeder.

I think her feeder turned out great!

We let the Puffy Paint dry and made the Nectar for the feeder (see below for recipe)

Stirring the sugar water

The Princess testing the sugar water.

Hummingbird Nectar:1/2 cup of sugar dissolved in 1 cup hot (boiling water) stir until dissolved. Add 1 cup of cold water and red or pink food coloring. We then poured the Nectar into the hummingbird feeder before I put the wire on it. So put the wire on it before you dump the Nectar in or you will have a HUGE mess! Hang outside and watch the Hummingbirds flock to your beautiful creation!

Our finished Hummingbird Feeder

Another View of the Feeder

The Princess and her feeder!

***** VERY IMPORTANT EDIT! So the Hummingbird feeder is leaking from the spout because I angled the cut down. Cut the straw up like on the inside and that should prevent leakage from the spout.

2 thoughts on “Hummingbird Feeder”

Fabulous idea. I had never thought of making our own. My boys will love this. Our last one (an expensive glass one) blew off its hook in a wind storm and broke. Now I can choose a bottle with a large enough opening to clean with a bottle brush, and it is not breakable.

Yes! Mine was an old honey bottle that I was able to stick a bottle brush down inside. We have made several – little ones from regular water bottles too. It is a great rainy day project for kids. My daughter loves hummingbirds so we are going to make a couple more this weekend.