Birds! Beach! Birthdays!

I haven't let you in on any of my crafty business lately but here's one that's quick, seasonal and good for the kiddos. 

I have a woodpecker that's been visiting my feeder and he gobbled up all of the suet I had out for him before I could buy more. I wanted him to keep coming to the feeder so I did something weird and made my own suet cake out of coconut oil. Now, suet cakes are super cheap and coconut oil is not so this is the best if you're getting some sort of entertainment value from the process or if you need an emergency suet cake. (And who doesn't?)

I had all the supplies I needed on hand. The coconut oil was leftover from when I made my own deodorant. (Works great....but you have to keep it in the fridge after the winter.) 

Step one: Melt the coconut oil for two 30 second intervals in the microwave.

Dump in seed. Why am I even taking pictures? This is so easy. Who do I think I am...the Pioneer Woman?

Pop it in the freezer and go do something else for an hour.

Ta da! It popped out of this in one piece pretty easily.

This would be great to do with kids and easy to make into a seasonal gift with cranberries and pine bits added to it. You could also make them for teacher gifts. (But really you should be giving teachers money or school supplies.)

Keep in mind that the coconut oil is going to melt at about 75 degrees so this is an outdoor, winter craft only. You can use lard if you're more serious about this than I am. The coconut oil is good for the birds though. Keeps em shiny.

This weekend we went to the beach.

I read two whole books and it was pretty heavenly until Blake got food poisoning on our last morning. We're terrible at vacations. I don't know why we even try. We were worried that it was a stomach bug but I'm not sick (yet) and he got better so fast!