Upcycled Bird Feeder

It’s officially fall which means our birdie friends will soon be in need of food.  I’ve seen so many cute examples of upcycled bird feeders, so I decided to make my own.  Now I can watch the little birds from my back window all day!

I made it out of an old silver platter that I found at the thrift store.  The holes around the outside of the platter made it perfect for hanging, and you can’t beat that price!  Thank you D.I.  Why am I picturing the scene from Napoleon Dynamite in my head as I type this?  Your lucky I didn’t find any awesome dance videos while I was there, or this post might have gone in a whole different direction! 🙂

I wanted to tone down the shiny-ness of the metal.  Spray paint seemed like too much, so I used some jewelry glaze to give it a nice antiqued look.  I love the color!

I only put it on the outside since the dish was going to be full of birdseed.  After that dried, I sprayed the whole thing with some clear enamel to protect it from the rain.

Now the fun part!  I took some jewelry wire, beads, charms, and jump rings, and strung them all around the platter.  The little bird charms were perfect!  Everything that I used, including the jewelry glaze, was from the Martha Stewart jewelry supplies that I got when I made this necklace.

To hang the bird feeder, I took some 14 gauge jewelry wire and put it through three of the holes.

Bring all of the wires up to the top and twist them around each other.  Leave one of the wires a little longer at the top and create a loop for hanging.  Sorry, I didn’t get a photo.

Hook some more charms and beads together to hang from the top.  I used some more jewelry glaze to paint the filigree charm.  Spray everything down with some more clear enamel to protect from the rain.

I don’t have any mature trees in my yard, so my bird feeder got put up on the fence with an old shelf bracket.  More upcycling… yay!

And just to prove that the birds love their new feeder, here is a horrible picture of them all over it.  They wouldn’t let me get any closer.  This was on my test run with twine instead of wire.  I like it with the wire much better.

I originally shared this post over at Homemade Ginger. Go check out her blog. You will love it!