Purple Martin House

• A purple martin house can add a lot of life to your yard. Extremely social birds, martins like to nest in community houses. You want to build your martin house apartment-building style, with twelve 6-by-6-inch martin apartments. Be sure to add perches on the sides of the building. Your martin house will have to rest on a tall pole (around 15 feet tall) in an open, sunny area of the yard. Put the house up in March or early April, and block it up in the winter to prevent other birds from calling the house home. It may take a couple years to see martins inhabit the house, and you may have to experiment with the location of the house in your yard.
  
  

Recyclable Materials

• A recyclable bird house is a green alternative to building your project from new materials. Use an old bleach bottle (well washed) or another large plastic container. Cut a large round hole for a door and a couple of holes for windows. Paint the house and decorate it with cloth for curtains. You can even glue old dollhouse parts to the exterior, or make plastic shingles to add some zest. Hang the house from a tree in your yard. If you want to really make your bird feel at home, cut a soda bottle in half and fill it with bird seed, and hang it near the bird house.
  
  

Decorative Birdhouse

• A decorative birdhouse doesn't need to have the functionality of a useable birdhouse, so it allows more opportunities for creativity. You can build your house out of wood, and you don't need to cut openings, which cuts down on the workload. Paint on a door and windows, glue on a welcome sign, and add personal touches like a front porch and furniture. You can hang this bird house on your porch or in your yard, or even set in on the shelf in your house.