DIY feather Christmas tree

Since it's so close to the holidays I decided to make some decorations with all these feathers I have laying around! I pick chicken feathers up off the ground all the time, especially during fall molt so I tend to always have a box full of them!

Obviously Christmas trees are a popular decoration this time of year and what better way to bring my love for chickens indoors than to make feather trees from chicken and guinea fowl feathers?

These are super easy to make and they took about 20 minutes to make 2 of them. I bought the Styrofoam cones at the dollar store so they only had one size, but the craft store had several different sizes available. 

The foam forms are slightly more expensive at craft stores but using dollar store items brought the total cost for this craft to $3 for 2 trees. This is honestly amazing because the larger ones at Wayfair cost $60 each!!!! The smaller ones at Target are $25 each! 

Plus, they weren't made from your chickens dropped feathers! So no nostalgia attached to the store bought ones. I'm kinda regretting that I didn't make a My First Flock tree from the feathers my first group of chickens dropped.

Make a feather candle holder

Lately I have been very busy making chicken crafts. I've made crafts in the shape of chickens and crafts out of feathers. Since many other chicken keepers also like to make crafts I thought I would share them with you. 

This week I made feather candle holders and I think they turned out really cute!

For these candle holders I used some feathers that I had held onto after my favorite chickens passed on, and other feathers that I had just picked up from the yard when the guineas dropped them. 

The great thing about owning chickens is that I always find tons of feathers in the yard to craft with!

You can buy feathers in the craft store though or even dye your own if you have a certain color scheme or 'look' you want to go for.

Each feather candle holder took me about 30 minutes to make from start to finish but a lot of that was drying time.

I made 4 candle holders with feathers this time, but I think I may make more for Christmas gifts!

Related reading: How to make a chicken feather necklace.

Elegant feather ornament tutorial

Since we're getting close to Christmas I thought I would bring you another feather ornament tutorial. If you're anything like me you probably have a vase or box of feathers that your chickens have dropped and you picked up. What better way to decorate for the holidays then to bring the chickens indoors with you in the form of feather ornaments?

I've already made feather filled ornaments...and it seems like everyone is writing about making these now. Who can blame them though? They sure do look nice on the Christmas tree! 

Speaking of trees, last year I wrote a tutorial on making feather trees! Those went over really well, especially with my cat! You'll have to click over to the post to read the cat vs feather story. Oh boy that was a dilemma!

I wanted to make something that can be used outside the Christmas tree this year. After all, we keep feathers to memorialize our favorite chickens, right? It's such a shame to have to put those away at the end of the holidays each year. 

I wanted to make a feather ornament that could be a year round decoration as well as an addition to the holiday décor.

Related reading: How to make a chicken feather necklace.

Easy to make feather ornaments

As a chicken keeper I always have a whole box of feathers. I pick up the perfect or unique feathers when I see them lying around on the ground or in the coop. So there's always a huge supply of chicken feathers and I love to use them for crafts. What better way to bring my feathered friends indoors with me than to use their feathers in my home decor?

Last year I saw a box of empty glass ornaments in the store and decided to make something with them. I had actually seen a Frozen themed ornament with blue glitter and white snowflakes inside on a craft blog, so that was the original idea. 

However when moving my craft supplies around to get to the glitter my eyes fell on the box of feathers and the plans changed. Right then and there I decided that chicken and guinea fowl feather ornaments were much better than cartoon characters!

Not only are they more 'me' but they have that homemade Christmas look that I love. They fit my homesteading style too!

Unfortunately even though I actually made these chicken feather ornaments for the first time a few years ago, my lazy butt didn't get around to writing about it till today. *sigh* Farming is hard in the winter...It really wipes you out! 

Before we get to these filled ball ornaments though, I also made these elegant hanging feather ornaments. You can find all the supplies in the same place, so I wanted to let you know before you head to the craft store!

Related reading: How to make a chicken feather necklace.

Back to the ornaments though. You'll only need a few things:

Make an easy feather necklace

Since we're getting close to Christmas I thought I would bring you another feather craft tutorial. Do you collect discarded feathers too? If you're anything like me you probably have a vase or box of feathers that your chickens have dropped and you picked up.

These are great for making feathers crafts and today I want to show you how I make feather necklaces.These would make a super quick Christmas gift!

I've already written a bunch of tutorials for feather décor that I've posted. I started withfeather filled ornaments... many years ago. 

Those became pretty common so I also made a more elegant beaded feather ornament. These are nice to make because you can use them year round, depending on what types of beads you use. I have one hanging from the rearview mirror of my truck.

I also did a few other decorations using feathers. First I applied feathers to a candle holder. Those were really easy to make in different sizes and shapes, so they match all décor styles.

I also wrote a tutorial on making feather trees. Those went over really well, especially with my cat! lol You'll have to click over to the post to read the cat vs feather story.

I wanted to make something that can be gifted and worn this year so I settled on feather necklaces. 

How to dye chicken feathers the cheap way (super easy!)

Scroll to the bottom for the Jobberknoll feather DIY.

The holiday is almost here and as I look at my list of feather crafts I want to make I notice one thing: I'm going to need a lot of feathers. Not just any feathers though, multi colored ones! With 80 assorted poultry is residence I have plenty of feathers it's just a matter of getting them the color I want. 

Obviously I'm going to have to dye the feathers myself, but how? So glad you asked, because I have 2 different feather dying methods that I decided to try out today.

I decided to dye the guinea feathers first. Those are the black and white polka dotted ones.  I also threw a few white ones in the mix for variety.....I think a few others got through too. I collected my supplies: boiling water, white vinegar, a glass baking pan, stirring spoon, Kool-aid in various flavors, food coloring and dish soap in an extra bowl.

How to make a chicken feather wreath

The other day when I was browsing Christmas tablescape ideas online, I saw the cutest grapevine wreath napkin rings. The were decorated with ribbons and bells but I thought they would be amazing with some feathers on them instead.

I have tons of chickens and guinea feathers that I've picked up from my backyard flocks and love to use them for crafts.

Well, I ordered the wrong mini wreaths! They were much larger than the ones I had seen being used as napkin rings, but I decided to go ahead and decorate them anyway.

Turns out, they make pretty cute decorations! 

I even used some as package tie-ons and I decorated egg cartons with others! It was a small thank you gift for those customers who have been purchasing eggs from me all year.

I'm going to attempt to write a tutorial for you here, but it's super simple so there's not much to write! We'll start with what you need:

Mini grapevine wreaths
Feathers: either purchased or rescued from where ever your chickens dropped them!
Ribbon and/or bows
Beads, bells or other adornments
Hot glue gun and glue sticks

How to decorate a blown egg

A few weeks ago we talked about how to blow out an egg so that you can keep it as a memento or decoration. Today I want to talk about decorating blown out eggs.

Easter is coming up and I'm always scrambling for new ways to decorate farm fresh eggs. They're just not as easy to color as white eggs, especially the Marans eggs and I am not buying eggs from the store for this! lol 

This year I'm leaving the dyes alone and instead I'm adding decorations to the eggs.

The great thing about decorating blown eggs is that they keep well for next year. Just store them the same way you'd store delicate ornaments...a little bubble wrap and they'll be fine. 

I really like this idea because I no longer have young kids that want to decorate Easter eggs each year! Plus, you can get a little fancier with more elaborate decorations since they'll be used more than once.

The art of egg decorating is practically as old as time. The oldest eggshells that were decorated were actually engraved with patterns. They date back to 60,000 years ago! 

Although, back then they only really only decorated emu and ostrich eggs. They're much larger and stronger than a tiny chicken egg, so it make a lot of sense.

We're working on a much smaller scale here though, so instead of carving we simply blow out the eggs and decorate them.  

It's really simple to decorate hand blown eggs and only takes a few supplies. You'll need extra long needles, ribbon or twine for hangers and whatever beads or decorations you want to add.

Easter crafts for last minute

I wrote this one during lockdown, but since it's nice to come up with activities you don't have to spend money on...it's still relevant! 

Right now we're all stuck in the house with nothing to do and a holiday coming. Normally I would think that's a recipe for disaster but I started thinking about the things we could do with eggs and feathers and other materials we may have around the homestead.

So I've compiled a list of crafts and fun things that we can do both to alleviate boredom and to celebrate the Easter holiday.

Most of these will use things you can find around your house. Although you may have to snag a tie from Dad or scrounge the cupboards for glue and glitter, you probably have everything you need.

With a few craft supplies and some kitchen staples, we can come up with some things to do.

If you can't run out for materials any time you want, or just don't want to spend more money than you have to, these frugal Easter crafts will be exactly what you need!

How I make $1,000 a month from 15 chickens!

Chickens can be expensive. Even if you don't count the coop, the feed and bedding are monthly expenses that add up a lot! I decided a long time ago to have a no freeloaders policy and I make all my chickens earn their keep. I've tried many different ways to make money from my chickens but the most profitable way just fell into my lap!

When I started raising chickens, I decided to hatch the chicks from eggs I ordered from a breeder. When word got out that I had hatched chicks, I started getting calls from people who wanted to buy my chicks. As soon as my chickens were full grown, I hatched their eggs!

The calls kept coming and I kept hatching. Over the years I've had as many as 90 chickens and as few as six. I've realized that by setting things up the right way I can make up to $1,000 a month on as few as 15 chickens.

Of course you could sell eating eggs, feathers and even chicken poop to make money from your chickens. I'm not knocking that at all, because it is a good way to make extra money. In my opinion though, the best way to make money off chickens....is by breeding chickens for profit.

Now, I'm sure you thought of that. In fact I'm pretty sure you're sitting there now saying "well yeah, but I can't make $1,000 selling chicks!" I promise you though, that you can do it. You just have to follow the money.