Today I hung out styles 1-3 of my handmade feeders. I think you will find them easy. One is safer for the kids as there are no sharp or hot things needed.
I have seen these on-line, but I came up with the idea for two of them myself.
Total Time: All together, about 3 hours
Yield: 5
Supplies:
- 4 cups bird seed ($.50)
- 2 cups oatmeal ($.25)
- 4 cups peanut butter ($4.00)
- 4 cups cornmeal (used boxed cornbread mix) ($.15)
- 2 cups dried fruit ($1.00)
- 4 oz corn syrup ($.25)
- 6 Tbsp flour ($0.05)
- 2 cups crushed nuts ($1.00)
- butter knife
- 2 food containers
- 2 TP/paper towel rolls
- 36 in crochet thread and darning needle
- scissors
- 1 pan for rolling
- 2 cups granola ($1.00)
- 1 lb lard ($2.00)
Steps:
- Some if not all of the recipe is in the first post, but I will repeat it here.
NOTE: Keep back some of the nuts/granola/bird seed for the TP coated ones. The recipe will make a lot of feeders, so if you have molds from former commercial suet cakes, they work great. 
- Warm 1 lb of lard and 2 c. peanut butter in large pan on low.
- When it's all melted, add the other dry ingredients. Mix well and chill for about 1 hour.
- I used a mesh net from a dollar store toy, two cheese cake and syrup containers, and two from a guacamole and cracker container.
- For the food containers, take the darning needle and poke a hole in the top for threading the crochet thread. I used a glue gun then a pair of scissors, but found it's just easier to use the needle. For one, I had to put the thread in and wind it around half a toothpick, knowing the suet mix would "cement" it there.
- Fill these and two of the fruit cup containers to almost the top. Freeze all for least 4 hours.
- For the mesh one: Take two of the fruit cup frozen cakes and pop them out. Putting them together in the mesh bag, almost like an egg shape, simply hang it. The nice thing is once the birds have enjoyed the food, the bag can be reused. You can also use an onion bag or a bag of glass nuggets from a dollar store. Hang the others with their thread.
- For the TP rolls, pour some of the feed/nuts/granola in a pan and mix well. Thread the crochet thread inside and tie it for the loop. Smear generous amounts of PB on the rolls and roll it in the dry mix.
- Hang them together for a fun display. I have everything from soup to nuts out on my yard. And they eat this up like crazy! N-JOY!!
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