If you carve enough jack o’lanterns for Halloween, you’re bound to mess one up like I did. I originally wanted this gorgeous pumpkin to be a Cinderella carriage jack o’lantern, but I got a little overzealous while I was carving the door and ended up carving off the whole carriage door. Instead of throwing it out, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to turn this jack o’lantern into a Pumpkin Bird Feeder! This was so easy to make and totally salvaged my sad carving job. If you have any less-than-perfect jack o’lanterns, you should definitely try this out!
MATERIALS
- Pumpkin
- Carving tools
- Birdseed (I used unsalted sunflower seeds and peanuts because we already had that in the house)
- Rope/twine (optional for hanging)
Cut off the top of the pumpkin as you would a regular jack o’lantern and scoop out all the seeds. You can carve in any additional designs you like or just leave the top off the pumpkin for the birds to access the birdseed. I ended up just carving a little cave where the carriage door used to be on my jack o’lantern because I’m not planning to hang up the bird feeder. If you choose to hang the pumpkin bird feeder, just leave the top off the pumpkin, pour the birdseed inside and tie the twine or rope around the pumpkin (so it makes an “X” on the bottom of the pumpkin).
Leave out for the next couple of weeks and discard once your pumpkin starts to deteriorate. Happy Halloween!