The Things We Remember

 I have been looking at different ways to upcycle old bottles. I have a great friend who is a bartender and she saves me the coolest bottles. At Christmas hubby got a bottle cutter and made each of the girls a set of glasses. He said it was a pain in the rear but they all loved them so it must have been worth it. He doesn't read my blog so I can say anything I want.  I have been wanting to make hummingbird feeders.These are the bottles I decided to use.

Here are the supplies. A bottle, A spool of Jute macrame thread, a metal ring and some beads with big holes.... and of course, a messy table to create interesting photos.

I started by remembering something I learned in the third grade. Never underestimate the things that you learned in third grade art class. That's right, I said third grade. Way back then macrame was hugely popular. Hey, it was the 70's, no more need be said. Our class made plant hangers for Mothers Day. Even though I barely remember it, I remembered that you have to have an even number of strings to start with. I measured out  4 strings with great precision   that were double as far as I could stretch my arm. Get it? So each one is 2 arm lengths then I folded them each in half to form a loop.

I did a slip knot (is that the right term?) around the ring with each of the doubled pieces of jute..............

                                                                 Like this.....................

So finished it looks like this: 

So you are working with 8 pieces of jute.

When that was done I slipped it over the neck of the bottle and started by taking the two strings next to each other and adding a bead, like this:

 I just kept taking the strings from different pairs and knotting them and adding some beads where ever I felt it looked nice, remembering to embrace the imperfection. It is very much like a net.

 When I finished my knots I simply tied a knot at the top and made a second loop so that I could hang it from my outside plant/bird feeder hanger. I filled it with nutritious sugar water humming bird food and pushed the cork feeder in place.
                                                            Ta Daaaaa. Here it is.

 Here the birds are coming in to inspect the new feeder. I was sitting so close but they didn't seem to mind too much.

I'll tell you though, they did seem to mind that I took down their feeder that I made with the screw on bottom. They did not embrace the Cha Cha Cha Change. This little guy just sat right down beside me to wait for me to bring back the blue feeder that I made a few weeks ago. And then......................

                      He found it on the ground where I had set it to hang the new one.

I had purchased two types of feeder bottoms. The birds seem to like the screw on ones the best but it's hard to find bottles that fit them. The cork style are much easier but the birds are not as thrilled with them. I think they will figure it out though.