DIY PVC Pipe Birds | Flamingo, Hummingbird, Heron, Woodpecker & More

9 Materials
$20
3 Hours
Advanced

These are so much fun to make. Once you get comfortable using your jigsaw and your heat gun, they are so easy too! Who knew you could make these fantastic birds, animals and so much more out of a PVC pipe?!


My birds range in size from 5.5" (parakeet) to 37" tall (blue heron).


Let's get started!

Start by creating a pattern and tracing it onto your 4" schedule 40 pvc pipe.


UGH.......


This took me many, MANY tries, many days and a lot of wasted time & money to come up with a good pattern. After a lot of tweaking, I finally got some great ones.


If you don't want to waste all your time and money also you can grab my patterns here as well as a much more detailed tutorial with a lot more pictures.

Next you need to trace out your pattern with a jigsaw. Take your time and work around your pattern. It can be a little tricky, but after a bit you'll get the hang of it. You can always practice on some scrap pipe first.


When you have it all cut out you are ready to start to reshape your bird. Take your heat gun and begin to heat up and soften the pipe one section at a time. When it is heating up and starts to flop, use your hands (with gloves if you need to protect your hands from the heat) to reshape the parts of your bird.


Hold your bird in his new shape until he has cooled completely. Keep working your way around the bird, shaping his beak, head, neck, body, wings and legs.


Once you have him reshaped, take a metal file or some sandpaper and smooth down all of your rough cut edges.


Then clean up your bird by taking some acetone and an old rag and rub off all of the ink and markings that are on the pipe.

Drill a hole in the birds feet so that you will have a way to attach him to something. I make my holes big enough to fit the screw through, but small enough that the head of the screws will not fit through. I like to attach my birds to pieces of wood or a concrete block so that he is sturdy and can stand up outside even in the wind.

When he is all cleaned up you are ready to paint him! Use spray paints that are meant for plastic to paint your birds. For areas such as the beaks, I use blue painters tape to make nice lines and protect previously painted areas.


Once they are painted, I also like to spray them with a clear spray acrylic sealer to help protect the paint job.


For their eyes I like to use rhinestones for the smaller birds and doll eyes for the larger birds to give them a more life like appearance.


Here is one of the egrets standing guard at the end of our driveway. He has been standing out there for over 2 years now through the wind, rain and the snow and he has held up great. I would however, suggest bringing them inside in the winter if you do get snow.

Here's one of our flamingo's chilling in my butterfly garden.

This small egret is attached to a piece of driftwood and standing on display in our bathroom.

And one of my favorites, the woodpecker, is attached to our tree waiting to greet all of our visitors.

This is a quick sneak peek of all of our individual birds. We have all 9 patterns available for these birds - a flamingo, blue heron, large egret, small egret, woodpecker, pelican/duck, penguin, a basic bird on a stake and a hummingbird on a stake. The 2 stake birds stake right into the ground and don't need to be attached to anything, making them easy to add to your garden.

Aren't they so much fun?! They make the perfect craft to DIY and then be given as a gift or even sell them!

Here's a few more different PVC pieces we've made. This is our 2 adorable little kids.

We also have a big holiday collection for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.

And we also have patterns for these military silhouettes

Add I just created these amazing parrots!


READY TO MAKE YOUR OWN?


For a more detailed tutorial and to get any of my patterns so that you can start making your pieces right away, head on over to CrazyDiyMom and start crafting them today!

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Jennifer | CrazyDiyMom
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Sunflower&Me Sunflower&Me on Dec 12, 2017

    We absolutely love them. I keep coming back to view them😊. Do you sell them?

  • Sue Pelton Sue Pelton on Apr 25, 2019

    do you mail the patterns out to people who can't download them and print them out?

  • Ray Treherne Ray Treherne on Jan 21, 2021

    How do I get patterns for flamingo

    Ray

    Ireland

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