How To Make a Simple, Inexpensive Bird Bath

There is nothing like water to attract neighborhood birds to your back yard. Birds need water for drinking, bathing, and regulating their body temperatures in hot weather. Children enjoy watching the antics of birds in the bird bath, and they can learn quite a bit about birds by researching the different kinds of birds they see in the yard.

Bird baths can be found at all price ranges, in a variety of styles and materials. However, a very simple, and charming, birdbath can be made very inexpensively with a few clay pots, some paint, and maybe an hour's worth of work.

Materials:

• Clay Pots: How many you need depends on how tall you would like your bird bath to be. If you would like to stack several pots to make your birdbath taller, you'll need to buy pots of different diameters. For example, if you wanted to stack three pots, you might go for a twelve inch pot on the bottom, with a ten inch pot on top of it, and an eight inch pot at the top.

• Clay Saucer: Find the biggest diameter, shallowest unglazed saucer you can.

• Paints: Acrylic paints work best for this project.

• Brushes, stamps, stencils: depending on what kind (if any) of design you want to decorate your bird bath with.

How to Make the Bird Bath:

1. Paint all of the pots with your desired base color. You won't need to paint the insides or bottoms of the pots, just the outsides.

2. Let the paint dry, paint a second coat if desired, and let dry.

3. Paint whatever designs you want on your pot. This is a great project for kids, who can fingerpaint, or use large stamps (made from sponges or even potatoes) to decorate the bird bath. Let the design dry.

4. Paint the saucer, both inside and out, with your desired paint color. Let it dry, add any designs you like, and then let it dry thoroughly.

5. Assemble your bird bath in it's final location by stacking the pots and then setting the saucer on the top. If you are worried about the saucer falling off, you can use a little bit of construction adhesive (normally sold in tubes) to attach it to the top pot.

6. Fill the saucer with water, and enjoy the birds you'll attract to your yard!

This bird bath has several great features:

1. It's inexpensive.

2. It's easy.

3. It's a great project for all ages.

4. It can be easily taken apart for storage.

If you live in an area that has freezing winter temperatures, you should store your bird bath in a garage, shed, or basement during the winter. Leaving it outside will result in the pots cracking. To care for your bird bath, simply clean the saucer regularly with a sponge to remove algae, bird droppings, and feathers, and fill it with clean water daily. If your saucer is a little deep, you can cover the bottom of the saucer with pebbles. Birds don't like water that is more than about an inch-and-a-half deep.

This is a fun project, and the birds will thank you.