Another new item for my display ..... possibly!!!!

Walking past a flower shop last month, I saw a decorative cream bird cage, I'm sure you must know the sort of thing I mean. My immediate thought was - shame that isn't black, I might have been able to use it as a display prop on my stall. next thought was, well I could paint it! I decided to think about it before rushing in to buy it. The following week I had a sales event and once my display was set up the idea of a bird cage  appealed even more than before, I just couldn't shake the idea away and then it occurred to me that may be, just may be I could make one. Never having attempted anything like this before, I sourced some black wire - black iron and I started planning in my mind how I would go about it, the plans changed as I went along and so did the finished product.

Tutorial - this is how I made my very first bird cage
Firstly I coiled 12 lengths of wire around a knitting needle, the coil needed to be large enough to slip over the thicker wire, so I tried several needles before starting, in hindsight I should have gone for an even larger sized needle to accommodate two lengths of the thicker wire, but I coped with the opted size.

next I twisted two long lengths of wire together and then at fairly even distances I attached wires to form the uprights.

Unlike most bird cages I needed some horizontal wires to hang earrings on if I want to, so to make sure these were all at the same approximate height I cut the coiled wire into equal lengths and slipped one over each upright before working on the horizontal wires. I chose to loop the horizontal, again so the earrings could hang as pairs and not encroach on it's neighbouring pair.

I worked on each row with the cage still flat, as it made it easier, I didn't join the ends together to form a round until all three horizontal wires were completed, I finished the top horizontal with another pair of twisted wires and then a shorter length of twisted wires helped to bring the verticals in at the top. Then it was just a case of taking all the wires to a centre point and joining them all together making a loop at the top to help carry it
The finished item

The wire had to be thick enough to keep its shape but still thin enough for me to wrap and twist, so the cage isn't the quite the rigid uniform item I had in mind at the beginning, but I like the quirky shape I have ended up with and it could work. My only concern is, will it be okay to hang earrings on the black iron - any one out there know if the earrings will react? I have thought about painting clear nail varnish on the black iron loops to protect the ear hooks, but I don't know if I need to or if it will help!

handmade by Angela Smith