How to Make Bird Ornaments

Merry Christmas Eve!!!!! For my final post this year, I’m going to show you how I made bird ornaments. I’ve always loved birds on Christmas trees, and this year I decided to pull the trigger and attempt my own. To go with them, I used the bird’s nest I preserved from my fall foraging. I’m hoping to make this a tradition and make a pair of birds every year until I have enough to fill an entire tree 🙂

Materials

Sculpting supplies

I used basic sculpting materials that I already had, including Sculpey oven-bake clay, aluminum foil, wire, an acrylic roller, and various tools. The only things completely necessary however are the clay and foil!

Feathers

Last year, I went on a search for ethical feathers for crafting. I’ve always been a bit uneasy about not knowing the conditions under which craft feathers are sourced. I went on Etsy and found a Missouri farm selling feathers from their birds! These are, of course, pricier than regular craft feathers, but I felt better about the general welfare of the animals they came from. Check out RabbitFeathers if you are in the market!

Clips

I ordered basic ornament clips from Amazon. They aren’t the most sturdy and may have to be replaced eventually, but they did the job for now.

Bird’s Nest

The last piece of material was the nest that I foraged from under my deck. I had previously let it sit out in the sun, sealed it in a plastic bag, left it in the freezer for a week, and finally coated the whole thing in 3-4 coats of matte top coat spray paint. The nest felt much less fragile after, but since a lot of the base of the nest was simply dirt, it was slowly crumbling. I secured it by hot-gluing a piece of cork around the bottom and that greatly reduced the crumbling.

Note: Make sure you don’t try to glue the cork directly to the dirt (it won’t stick). Instead glue around the edge to the vegetation.

Process

I started by sketching my birds. These are not representative of an actual species. I liked the idea of making a whimsical, mythical bird of my own imagination. The sketch definitely turned out finch-like with a bit of cardinal thrown in. I planned on a male/female pair with one a bit more brightly colored than the other.

Sculpting the birds

To reduce the weight of the ornament and save on expensive clay, I balled up aluminum foil to serve as the base of the birds. I then attached the head to the body with a piece of stainless steel wire to define the bird’s posture.

I then rolled out some clay and wrapped it tightly around the aluminum forms. After that, I slowly shaped the details like adding the beak and a bit of wing definition. Lastly, I propped the figures up with aluminum foil and popped them in the oven following the directions on the Sculpey package.

Covering with feathers

This step was the most time-consuming part, but definitely the most rewarding. A general rule of thumb is the smaller the bird, the smaller the feathers need to be to cover the bird. Most of my feathers were too big/stiff, so next time I will either make larger birds or buy more of the smaller feathers. My basic order of operations was as follows:

1. Prepare the feathers. I clipped the fluffy bits off of the base of the feathers and trimmed them to size.
2. Cover the back. I used one larger feather to serve as a base on which I could build.
3. Cover the stomach. I started at the tail base and layered feathers up toward the neck.
4. Add the tail. I used hot glue for this part as my tacky glue was not strong enough.
5. Build up the back/wings. I added a few more feathers to the back and then three layers of feathers for the wings in progressively smaller sizes.
6. Cover the head/add the eyes. I used the same hot glue eyes I created for my Halloween Spiders.

Painting the details

I wanted the beaks to look a bit more dynamic so I dry-brushed some highlights on the tops and covered the beaks in glossy Mod Podge.

Adding the clips

I definitely made a mistake here. I probably should have baked the clips into the clay figures at the beginning. If you wait till the end you have to trim back the feathers so that the hot glue can adhere to the baked clay. Although this works I can tell the glue won’t hold forever, especially if you move the birds around a lot. In the future, I’ll bake them into the figures, but for these I’ll most likely experiment with other glues. If you have a suggestion, let me know!

Bringing it all together

Warning: I took a lot of pictures of these bird ornaments. The reason: I loved them! It will be interesting to experiment with clip placement as this sort of defines how the birds sit/their final posture.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning how to make bird ornaments, because I legitimately enjoyed making them. This was a rare project where I enjoyed the process all the way through 🙂 I hope you all have a happy holiday season! See you next year.