Today’s craft is a wire bird cage. I haven’t been able to log in to Pinterest the last few weeks without seeing someone’s version of this. It seems to have seeped into my brain because now I can’t think about anything other than making different types of bird cages and finding different uses for them!

Now that I’ve made one I want to experiment with painting them different colours, doing different sizes and using different gauges of wire for different more ornate designs.

Most of the ones I’ve seen require soldering of some sort which I wasn’t prepared to do so I made mine using 2 gauges of wire, a large for the main parts and a thin jewellery wire for the joins.

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You can pretty much see how it’s made without needing a tutorial but I’m already here… and I’ve already got all these photos… so let’s just do it anyway ;)You need:

  • Thick-ish wire for the main structure
  • Thin-ish wire for the joins
  • Wire cutters
  • Pliers for bending everything (my sore fingers really advise you to use pliers)
  • Something to get a perfect circle shape from, I used a bottle of Bio Oil
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Start by making a circle of thick wire and use a some small wire to wrap the ends securely. If you’re worried about how sharp they are you can wrap further around to cover edges or even completely around the circle for an interesting finish.

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Make two of these.

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Now make 3 curved pieces which have long legs, these will be the tall parts of the cage. They don’t need to be perfect because you’re going to be bending them a lot to perfect the shape. Make sure to cut the legs quite long so you have room to bend and loop the ends. More is better than less!

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Put them together like this and tie the tops of all of them together with the thin wire to keep them steady while you work. You can make this more decorative later.

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Slide the first loop where you want the half way point of the cage to be.

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And then slide the bottom on too.

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Don’t worry if it won’t stay up for now, we’ll fix it a bit later.

Bend the legs out so they sit evenly.

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Once I was sure it was even I added a decorative loop at the top to make it a bit more secure and to prevent everything from sliding around.

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Now bend the ends of the legs into loops so they hook around the bottom circle. Once you’re done you can slide the half way circle back up and bend the inside wires so they are bowed out. Their curve will hold the circle in place. If you find this isn’t secure enough you can add some more small gauge wire loops to hold it in place.

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All finished! You could make mini ones for jewellery or larger ones as decorative house hold things. This one is an odd size so it’s a little bit pointless XD

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I’m thinking of making some big ones to hang off our roof next. Maybe a cluster of them painted pink or white would look really pretty with candles inside!

 

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