Birdseed Ornaments and Popcorn & Cranberry Garland

Hello friends! Happy 2016!

This year, our family chose to have an old-fashioned Christmas, and rented a cabin for the holiday season. Since we didn't have a traditional Christmas tree inside the cabin, we made plans to string popcorn and cranberries, and make birdseed ornaments so we could decorate a tree in the forest for the local wildlife.

Cranberry and Popcorn Garland

Jen and I have talked about wanting to make popcorn and cranberry garland for years, but the holiday season flies by and we never end up having time. To string the garland, we were planning to use fishing line. After doing some research on the ornaments and learning how dangerous fishing line is for birds, I purchased some natural twine from Amazon. For the cranberries, we used upholstery needles and the twine. Since the popcorn was more fragile, we used Jen's embroidery needles and baker's twine. The popcorn was popped several days ahead of time to make it less crumbly.

Birdseed Ornaments

To make the birdseed ornaments, I followed this recipe. In all honesty, I had about two identifiable ornaments. The rest became crumbled blobs. I'm hoping the birds didn't care. I'm not sure if my solution wasn't sticky enough to hold the birdseed, or if I took them out of the cookie cutters too soon. Hopefully next time they'll stick better!

Not only was this a perfect holiday project, but fun to continue to make throughout January and February when it seems like supplemental food by local wildlife is appreciated!

Here's the finished product!

Our family loved this project, and I'm sure it'll become a new holiday tradition.