If you’re crafty and frequently have snips of fabric and little pieces of thread left over after a project, find a jar, pretty bowl or even a bag you can hide away and save up those scraps.

Cut up the larger pieces as you go so you have a collection of skinny bits.  Once you have enough, stuff them into a clean suet bird feeder.  Early next spring, hang it in a bird friendly spot.  (Don’t quit saving up your scraps, make another for a friend!)

Hopefully your friendly neighborhood birdies will come upon this jackpot of nest building materials and fill your trees with the most colorful nests you’ve ever seen!

This would be a good lesson for a young child.  While cleaning up after a project, you can talk about how it’s good for the earth (and our personal economies) to get as much use as we possibly can out of everything.  You can also teach them about bird families, and how much Mommy and Daddy birds love their babies and prepare for them just like people do.  This just reinforces what kids already know – they are indeed the center of the universe.

When it gets cold again, your suet feeder can be used to feed the birdie families you helped in spring.  Which puts us right back to the recycling bit again … :)