Valentine's Wreath for the Birds

Now that Christmas is over, I wanted to put up a different wreath on our door and thought we would go with a  Valentine's Day wreath.  One of our science activities this week was to watch popcorn pop, so I thought a popcorn wreath would be perfect!  Our birds are probably getting hungry since they have long eaten the food off of our corn cob bird feeders, so I figured that they would appreciate it too =) I saw a few different ideas online for popcorn wreaths, so I headed out to the dollar store to find some cheap material.  I was hoping to find a styrofoam like heart shape to poke popcorn into, but no luck.  What I did find was some red floral wire that would be perfect to fashion into a heart shape!

So the kids and I strung a bunch of popcorn and dried cherries.  This was SO much easier than stringing the Indian corn necklaces we did in October!  We had to be very careful, but the kids were actually able to help me by handing me pieces of popcorn and dried cherries, pushing them down the string, and even poking them on the needle a few times.  Trevor tired of it before we got enough strung, but he enjoyed it for the first while.

Once we got enough length of popcorn, I wrapped it around the heart I had shaped out of the floral wire.  I made a double heart, hoping that it would help give the wreath more width.  I'm sure that you could come up with a different idea, but mine ended up looking pretty much as I had hoped =)  The popcorn kept slipping downward, so I took some extra string and wrapped in around and around to keep the popcorn in place.  Then I tied a ribbon at the top and hung it up!  I originally wanted it to be a wreath for our front door, but my husband wisely cautioned me that I might not want to beckon birds to our front door.  I headed his caution.  Hopefully we will get to see some birds enjoying their food!

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