For the Birds: Easy Pine Cone Nesting Mobiles

In honour of Earth Day we decided to do a craft to help out one of Mother Nature's children… the birds!

This is the time of year when birds are out collecting sticks, straw and whatever they can find to build their nests. Did you know that by offering birds nesting materials, they are more likely to actually stick around your yard and build their nests? How cool! So, in honour of our winged friends, we made some nesting mobiles out of natural materials.

You will need:

• pinecones (any size will do, but the bigger the better)
• embroidery thread or strong string
• wooden beads
• yarn
• roving or cotton batting

Directions:

To start, we went on a foraging hike and gathering up some pinecones. We happened to have some huge ones in our yard, but use whatever size you can get your hands on.

We tied a long piece of embroidery floss to the top of the pinecone, leaving a long tail for what comes next!

Next, using a large needle, we strung on some pretty wooden beads (I dyed them green and blue with food colouring). To keep this a natural mobile, try to stick to using wood beads. Then we got out some colourful yarn and snipped it into pieces about 3-inches long. We loosely wrapped each piece in between the beads. We didn't tie them because we wanted to birds to be able to remove them easily.

Lastly, we stuffed the pinecone with wool roving. You could also use cotton batting, or even just weave some yarn in and out. 

A proud bird helper and Earth lover here!

You can hang these anywhere in nature knowing that they are made out of beautiful natural materials and will eventually return to the Earth from which they came.

Happy Earth Day!