About

Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 1h00

Sweet wire birdcage ornaments that are easy and fun to make
These little wire bird cage decorations are easy to make and look pretty. You could make several and string them onto some ribbon for a garland, or hang them off a branch or in a tree in the garden :)

Posted by Emmy F. • Published 14th July 2011 • See Emmy F.'s 7 projects »

Print • Embed

Kinhime Dragon added Beaded Mini Bird Cages to alter 10 Jan 01:56
Kinhime Dragon favorited Beaded Mini Bird Cages 09 Jan 22:41
ruthless.biach favorited Beaded Mini Bird Cages 28 Aug 21:30
april.g.lucas favorited Beaded Mini Bird Cages 02 Apr 07:45
Nancy! added Beaded Mini Bird Cages to Monde des Fée/Fôret enchantée 22 Mar 00:14

Step 1
First you need to cut the bottom off of your can. The bottom should be about 1.5cm tall and fairly neatly cut.
Step 2
Now take your needle and poke 8 holes at regular intervals around the bottom of the can. The easiest way to do this is to do them in pairs opposite each other so they're evenly spaced.
Step 3
Now take your wire, and cut 4 lengths of roughly 30cm. Straighten them out and make sure they don't have any kinks or twists in. Now fold them all in half together, so you're pinching the top with 8 strands coming down. Leave about half a cm from the top, then twist several times round so that you have a loop at the top as in the picture.
Step 4
Pull out each strand so that they are evenly spaced. You can now start to see your cage staking shape.
Step 5
Now it's time to start beading. Do one strand at a time, sliding your beads on until the beaded section is 10 to 12 cm long. Then using some scissors or pliers to help you, curl the wire round in a little loop, back to where it started, so that the beads won't fall down while you complete the other strands. Repeat for the other 7 strands. You need about 5cm wire spare at the end of each strand. If there is a lot more than that, trim it to 5cm.
Step 6
Taking one strand, poke the end from the outside into one of the holes in the can. Then bend the wire up and around the bottom of the strand of beads, wrap it around a few times to secure, then push it back down into the can.
Step 7
Repeat the process with the opposite strand, and then all the others in between. The bird cage should now look almost complete.
Step 8
Draw your bird on some pretty paper or card and cut it out. You can either have your bird dangling freely, by attaching it to some cotton which you can tie around the top of the cage, as in pictures two or three, or you can make a seat for your bird instead.
Step 9
I made this one by rolling up some brown paper and pushing some wire through it, which I then bent upwards to make a swing shape. Then I glued the birds onto the seat, and wrapped the tops of the wire around the loop at the top of the birdcage.
Step 10
Almost finished! All you need to do now is cut out a strip of paper which is slightly taller than the bottom of your can. Glue it on and you're done :)