Spring Teacup Bird Feeders

A dear friend of mine moved away this week to California. She left me these pretty teacups that were her grandmothers and said, "I know you can turn these into gifts!" A shelf had broken in her house and smashed most of her grandmother's china and all that was left was a few of these teacups. My friend stayed at our house for a few days as she was packing and moving out of her own home. I ran out to Hobby Lobby while she was out doing errands and crafted up a gift for her to take with her to her new home. I researched a bunch of diffferent ways to make teacup birdfeeders on Pinterest quickly, made a list of my supplies, and hurried off to the craft store!

I found the poem on Cap Creations blog and they have a free printable of the poem. I retyped it and added some graphics to go with the teacup.

This is the chain I found at Hobby Lobby (half price!) and it was just enough for the 6 teacups! Each saucer has three chains, 12 inched long. You can easily cut the chain with jewerly or wire cutters.

The little pieces that pinch to the saucers are a jewelry pieces also at Hobby Lobby. They are called "pinch bails." They are used to hold pendants on necklaces.

I was able to find "S hooks" at Lowe's and they also have birdseed. My friend (who I was secretly making this gift for) brought over a bunch of things to sell at my garage sale. One of the items was a big container of birdseed! I had to keep a straight face because it was exactly what I needed to finish her gift!

There are two pointy pieces of metal inside the pinch bails that you need to clip off with the jewelry cutters. Then dip each side of the pinch bails in E6000 glue. I pinched them to the saucers with my fingers because using the pliers was too slippery with the glue.

I used these little jewelry circles/links to hook onto the end of each of the bails. Jewelry pliers work best to open and close these up.

Make sure the bails are evenly spaced. The flowers were evenly spaced on the saucers so that that made it easy to know where to put the bails.

I put the circles on each end of the chain and then linked them all on a heavier link (piece of old jewelry chain) to hook that on the "S hook." I tried just using one of the small circle and "S hook" but the weight of the teacup opened the little circles. So that is why I had to use a heavy piece of the chain.

I put the E6000 glue around each of the bottom of the cups and pressed them on the saucers. I weighted them down for a half hour with books.

A cute tag and a bag of birdseed completes the pretty bird feeder! Make sure to let the glue dry for atleast 24 hours before trying it out or else the bails will just slide off!

My favorite bedtime story from when I was little was from a an old storybook from the 70's. It had short stories in it and one of them was about a a little rosebud teapot. The story was about a little girl who when to a yard sale and felt sorry for a little rosebud china teapot with no lid. The owner said "oh you don't want that, it has no lid." But the little girl had an idea in her mind, bought it, took it home and turned it into something beautiful. She gathered flowers and put it in the teapot and sat it in the windowsill and the teapot was so very glad to be loved again. These china teacups reminded me of that story and I'm glad I could quickly send off this gift with my friend so she could be reminded of her grandma everytime she looked at her hanging birdfeeder in the yard. : )