Terra cotta Bird Feeder

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The birds are singing in early moring these days and I love to watch them feeding outside of my windowsI. With that in mind, I made this cute terra cotta bird feeder from a flower pot and a couple of saucers!

This post was featured earlier and republished as one of my most viewed tutorials!

Here’s what you need

DIY Bird Feeder from a Flower Pot

• 1 or 2-liter plastic water bottle, 3-1/2 inches in diameter***I used a 2 liter water bottle
• 6-1/2-inch clay pot
• 7-1/2-inch clay saucer***My top saucer was a bit smaller
• 9-1/2-inch clay saucer
• Eye bolt, 1/4 inch by 5 inches
• Two 1/4-inch washers***I didn’t use these
• Two 1/4-inch nuts to fit eye bolt
• 12 inches of lightweight wire***I didn’t use this
• 48 inches of picture-hanging wire
• Fishing swivel***Had to get this at Walmart
• Small tree branch, about 18 inches long
• I got everything at the Home Depot except the fishing swivel & the water bottle!

I didn’t read through the instructions before I started this therefore I didn’t soak my flower pot and saucers over night…you need to do this! Saturated terra cotta is easier to drill!

Mark your holes for drilling- you’ll need a masonry drill bit (1/4 “-according to Bird’s and Bloom) I don’t have any idea about the size of my bits, they were the only two masonry bits that The Husband had in his tool box!

Drill holes in the center of the saucers, adding a few drain holes in the larger saucer-

The flower pot will be your actual bird feeder, so these holes dispense the seeds as well as looking cute! When drilling terra cotta, make certain it’s saturated with water-drill very slowly, applying pressure–the pressure is much more important than the speed. If the drill bit starts to smoke, dip the pot in the water. (I have a battery operated drill so I touched the tip of the bit to the water to quickly cool it. I had to do this a lot while drilling BUT DON’T do this if using an electric drill for the love of pete!)

***This process is slllloooowwww. It killed my arm and hands, I had to take a break and in the end, The Husband had to drill a couple of holes for me***

Also drill a hole in your stick…

Your bottle will act as a seed reservoir- press bottom into flower pot and mark just below the top of pot…cut off top of bottle with scissors-

Now using a marker, line up and mark the holes to let the seeds out. The bottle holes should line up with the holes in the flower pot…Using an exacto knife or scissors cut out the holes…this didn’t turn out looking neat 🙂

cut or drill a hole in the bottom of the bottle…

Screw your eye bolt through the bottle–flower pot–saucer & stick…(I had to go back and make my drilled holes a bit bigger to accommodate the eye bolt)

Attach wire to the eye bolt…

fish the wire through the hole in the smaller saucer and attach one end of the fish swivel to the top of the wire. Then attach a small loop of wire to the other end of the fish swivel. (Hang the feeder with the small loop)

Fill the seed reservoir (water bottle) with seed and hang your feeder!!!