My kids and their friends discovered a really fun way to make bird nests from seeds collected from ornamental grasses. View their video demonstration here. We happen to have a smoke bush in our yard, and I thought maybe the seeds from the bush would work well for this craft too. If you’re not familiar with smoke bushes or smoke trees, they look like this:
See all that seedy fluff waiting to be transformed? I snapped off a handful of the fluff and set it out to dry (the fall rain has started!!)
To make your birds nest, strip the fluff from the stems by running the stem through your fingers. Collect the fluff and roll it into a ball:
Then shape the nest by carefully pulling at the edges, and squishing your thumb or fingers in the middle. Your finished nest will look something like this:
Tip: the smoke bush seeds were fun to shape into a nest, but they didn’t stick together as well as the nests that were made from grasses (see video). To make sure your smoke bush nest sticks together, dilute some glue with water (2:1) and moisten the nest with the glue mixture as you work. Let your craft dry on a piece of waxed paper so that it doesn’t stick to your work surface.