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| Bottles and Hiking Bags |
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| Lighted Blocks |
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| Fun Water Bottles |
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| Tami's Signs |
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| Birdhouse Welcome Posts |
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| Shiplap and Silhouette Projects |
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| Wine a Little Laugh a Lot |
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| Kissing the Cook is Great but, how about a Hand? |
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| Dish Towel and Hot Pads |
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| Mixing up the Holiday Magic |
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| Rice Krispie and Cocoa Pebbles Nests with Chocolate Eggs |
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| Birdseed Ornaments |
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 cup water
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3 tablespoons corn syrup
- 2 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin, such as Knox
- 4 cups birdseed
Measure out ingredients before
beginning. You can use any type flour. For the birdseed,
choose seeds that most appeal to your backyard birds.
Ornaments could easily be made with
just sunflower seeds or millet, or you can customize your blend with peanut
chips, sunflower seeds, sunflower hearts, cracked corn
or dried fruit as desired, so long as the total amount of birdseed is
approximately four cups.
TOOLS:
- Medium or large mixing bowl
- Nonstick cooking spray
- 8-12 cookie cutters
- Wax paper
- Nonstick saucepan
- Skewer or similar implement (for making holes)
- String, yarn or twine, cut into 6-8 inch lengths
- Wire cooling rack
- Wooden spoon or rubber scraper
Ideally, the cookie cutters should
be an inch thick. The thicker ornament, the more stable and more easily hung it
will be. Chunkier shaped cookie cutters work best. They can be either plastic
or metal.
The string to hang the ornaments can
be any type of string, twine, yarn, ribbon or raffia. Avoid fishing line
as it can be dangerous to birds. After the ornaments are eaten, the leftover
string can become nesting
material for birds.
1. Spray
each cookie cutter thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray. If desired, spray the wax paper as
well to be sure the warm ornaments do not stick at all.
2. Add
water and corn syrup to the nonstick saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and add gelatin, stirring or whisking
it continually to dissolve. Only heat this mixture until the gelatin has
dissolved; boiling the liquid down too far will reduce the quantity available
to bind your ornaments, and they may fall apart more easily.
3. Transfer
the syrup mixture to your mixing bowl and add the flour. Stir mixture until it
is well blended; it will have a consistency similar to a medium brownie batter
or thick cake batter, and there should be no large clumps. If it is too thick
to stir easily, add additional hot water one tablespoon at a time until it is
appropriately thinned. Similarly, if the mixture is too thin, add flour one
tablespoon at a time to reach the right consistency.
4. Add
birdseed and thoroughly mix it with the flour batter to coat all the seeds.
This will be a thick, stiff mixture, but it is important to blend it well
otherwise the ornaments will fall apart. Spraying a rubber scraper or spatula
with nonstick spray for the mixing can help ensure a good mix without too much
seed sticking to the utensil.
Fill only one ornament at a time; they will start to dry
quickly, extra seed added at the end will not adhere as well to the finished
ornament. You may need to spray your hands with nonstick spray after every 2-3
ornaments so the seed does not stick to you.
6. Any extra birdseed mixture you have left after filling all
your cookie cutters can be rolled into small balls or patted into small, firm
cakes without molds.
8. Gently
move the ornaments – still in the cookie cutter molds – onto the wire cooling
rack to dry. Dry the ornaments for a minimum of 6-8 hours, but 24 hours is even
better.
9. Stick the ribbon, string or twine
through the holes in each ornament use a wide-eyed tapestry
needle to pull the ribbon or string through the hole. Tie knot to
form desired loop size.
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