Anyway. This is a really neat craft. The idea is, you take a wooden birdhouse (I don't think cardboard or paper mache would work too well in this case) and decorate it with birdseed. Then, the birds can eat the seed, and you can scrape off the paste and decorate all over again!
I actually have two types of birdhouses that I used: solid wooden ones from Michael's; and ones that you snap together, made out of balsa wood, that I got from Oriental Trading. Both work just fine, though I prefer the Michael's pre-made ones, because I pre-assembled all the other ones (as this program had some little guys) and it took me forever. Older kids and teens could assemble their own houses, thus negating this complaint.
You Need:
Wooden birdhousesFlour
Small paper bowls
Popsicle sticks
Various birdseed (CAUTION: some birdseeds contain nuts, and may be an allergy issue. Read your labels!)
Roasting pans or cookie sheets (optional but very helpful)
What to Do:
I set my table like this: Each place a paper plate with a birdhouse on it, and one popsicle stick. I put out two aluminum roasting pans per table, and filled each with good amount of birdseed. When children arrived, I let them pick their birdhouse, and we made each child a small paper bowl with a couple spoonfuls of flour and some water, stirred with the popsicle stick, until it made a nice paste. Kids were instructed to smear the paste onto the flat sides of the birdhouses, and then push the house, paste-side down, into the roasting pan. As long as they had good paste coverage, the house would emerge covered in birdseed.
Repeat until all sides are covered. Then you can hang your house outside. The birds can eat the seeds, and then you can scrape the paste off and start all over again. YAY for repeatable crafts!
