Birdseed Ornaments

We just watched a Max and Ruby yesterday where Ruby made "all natural" tree decorations and Max put them on a tree outside as "presents" for the birds.  Chiquita loves watching the birds from our kitchen window so I thought we'd make them some Christmas presents.

We used this recipe from Saltwater Kids, I just added some dried cranberries since we have an ornamental fruit tree that the birds love and I wanted to make sure those birds stuck around.  Also these craisins were soaked in pomegranate juice, which sounded really good, but I actually don't like at all.

Chiquita helped me mix all the ingredients together.  I was proud of her she even kept everything in the bowl!

Then I started pressing them into cookie cutters.  I didn't realize until this point that I really didn't have nearly enough cookie cutters.  So I decided to use something I did have - toilet paper rolls!  I figure these are like the ball ornaments, right?  I really had to use my hands to press them into these molds.  Partly because they were a little small.

I used straws and skewers to make a hole in the center.  When they were a little bit drier then I picked them up to make sure the straws and skewers had gone all the way through.  I'm glad I did because some of them had craisins blocking the way and it would have been difficult to string them later.