This hummingbird feeder is upcycled (mostly) from inexpensive materials.  You can probably make them a little prettier with heavy jewelry-gauge wire and a bit of skill, but I made this one with coat hangers just to show how you can make them with next to nothing.

You will need:

• Orangina (in bottles; I got a 4-pack for $4-something.)
• 2 wire coat hangers
• metal washer
• hummingbird feeder spout
• hummingbird food (or sugar & water)

You will also need:

• pliers
• strong hands!

What you do:

STEP 1: Drink the Orangina.  (Or have a child do this part.)

STEP 2: Wash the bottle well, and remove the label.  Soaking the bottle helps with label removal.  If you still have some label left, try spraying it well with vinegar, letting it soak in for a few minutes, then scraping it off.  Set the lid aside for another craft, or discard it.

STEP 3: Stretch the two coat hangers, so they’re long and thin.

You should be able to see how, when they’re overlapped, like this:

…you can nest the bottle inside, like so:

(I was trying to do this and take pictures at the same time, by myself.  Bear with me!)

STEP 4: Allow the bottle to rest inside the ring formed by the overlapping wire hangers (as shown above), lift the upper ends of the hangers, and curve them around the bottle.

STEP 5: Twist the upper ends of the hangers together.  (When you do this, the bottom section will probably twist around all funky, and you’ll have to sort it out again after the tops are fully twisted together.)

Without the bottle, it should now look something like this:

STEP 6: Push the bottom ends together so they overlap again, and nest the bottle back inside.  You will find that it sits nicely as long as you hold the whole thing together, but if you let go, the hangers will spring apart and the bottle will fall out.  We’re going to fix that.  Slip a washer over the top (hook end) of the hangers, and work it down until it is holding the hangers in place and you can let go.  (I had to keep pinching sections closed with the pliers, to get the washer to fit down them.)

STEP 7: Insert the plug.

The feeder is now finished!  You’ll now want to fill it, though.  Or, if you’re giving it as a gift, you’ll want to give a bottle of food or a recipe card along with it.

The recipe for hummingbird food is:

4 parts water
1 part sugar

Bring water and sugar to a boil.  Stir to dissolve the sugar.  Let cool.

(Occasionally, the bottle may need to be washed, to prevent mold.  That’s why the wires of the hanger aren’t permanently twisted together.  The bottle needs to be removable, even though we don’t want it to easily fall out.)