christmas for the birds

We love slapping peanut butter and birdseed onto just about anything and turning it into a bird-feeder--we've used pine cones, pom juice bottles, cardboard, and toast.

But we've never used bottle caps...

Until now.

You know I am a habitual bottle cap collector. So it should come as no surprise that I have been storing away these play-doh caps over the past two years...I knew they would come in handy one day.

I prepped for this activity by hot gluing string to the backs of the caps to make the hangers. It took about 5 minutes to cut the string and then glue them on. Nothing fancy here.

I set up the craft table and Juliet was THRILLED with the prospect of rolling caps around in the birdseed. (She would have been thrilled with just scooping her hands through the birdseed and flinging it about the kitchen...)

We made Henry Ford proud by setting up an assembly line and getting down to business. I spread the peanut butter on the caps.

Juliet did the dipping.

She laid them on the tray--ready for the birds.

We took them outside and hung them on our mini-Christmas tree.

I love how they look like christmas ornaments! We spent the rest of the day peeking out the kitchen window to see if the birds loved our ornaments as much as we did.

But they never seemed to be there when we looked outside.

The next day, I noticed that about half the ornaments were gone. I thought maybe the wind had knocked them down, however, a few hours later, I noticed more were missing.

The next time I looked outside, only one ornament was left. "What is going on with these ornaments?" I wondered to myself.

Then I saw him.

THE SQUIRREL.

He looked at me straight in the eye and that's when I knew.

Our ornaments were not bird-feeders. They were squirrel snacks. It seems that they made the perfect little plates for our furry friend!

I found the discarded and de-seeded plates strewn about our yard. So much for our dream of seeing birds perching on the branches and enjoying our treats--but at least the squirrel enjoyed them!

Linking to these parties...