DIY Gorgeous Scrap Fabric Birdcage - For Spring Decor

Transform an old wire coat hanger and fabric scraps into a charming spring fabric birdcage decoration with our easy-to-follow tutorial. Perfect for adding a whimsical touch to your spring decor.

Maybe it's because I'm the daughter of an ornithologist; spring makes me think of birds. This gave me the idea of making a scrap fabric birdcage decoration for the home.

These upcycled fabric birdcages would make a lovely gift, and as with the fabric birdhouses I made, they can be personalized by using a favourite old shirt or blouse.

Any old fabric scraps will do for these gorgeous birdcage decorations. I've been eyeing up an old pink-striped shirt of my husband's, which I think I'll wear next.

DIY Fabric Birdcage Decoration For Spring

The fabric birdcage takes about 1 hour to make and costs almost nothing as you use stuff around the home.

scrap fabric birdcage decoration

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What you need to make a fabric Birdcage

  • Two wire coat hangers (like the ones you get from the dry cleaners)
  • Small round metal flan case or any round object about 7-8cm in diameter. If you don't have anything like that, you can use a round bit of stiff cardboard
  • Scraps of cotton fabric or an old cotton shirt.
  • Pliers, wire cutters, glue brush, duct tape & glue
  • Small twig and twine and feather bird
What You need to make fabric birdcage - Pillarboxblue

As I used a hanger for this craft, it has featured under H in the A to Z of upcycling resource ideas.

How to make a fabric birdcage

Making The Wire Frame

Step 1: Firstly, you need to make the birdcage frame. Cut the wire coat hangers with wire cutters in the two places shown in the picture below.

Step 2: Shape your hanger into the shape below using duct tape in the corner to hold it in place. Do this to both hangers, but cut the top hook off the second hanger.

Step 3: Slot your two hangers together to form a cross shape and secure in place with duct tape. Don't worry about how much duct tape you use; you will cover it all in fabric.

Fabric birdcage frame

Now your frame is ready to cover in fabric.

Covering The Frame In Fabric

Step 4: Tear the fabric into strips about 3cm wide. Tearing gives a better effect than cutting. With a brush, paste the wrong side of the fabric with glue and then wrap it around the wire frame, overlapping as you go. Continue until the whole fabric birdhouse frame is covered.

Fabric birdcage
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Step 5: Cover whatever you use for the base in fabric and stick this to the bottom of your cage. This is relatively easy to do as you are sticking fabric to fabric.

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Fabric Birdcage - Pillarboxblue.com

Step 6: Finally, the fabric birdcage is almost finished. You only need to hang a twig from the frame with some twine to make a perch and add your bird.

I bought by bird months ago on a trip to Brighton, but they are easy enough to find on Amazon. You could even make a fabric one yourself; there are loads of patterns on Pinterest.

scrap fabric birdcage
upcycled fabric birdcage spring decoration

You'll find lots more spring craft ideas here.

With mothers day around the corner, I think that one of these fabric birdcages would make for a lovely Mothers Day gift. You could make the gift even more special using an old favourite blouse or shirt.

You should check out these upcycled crafts for more Mother's Day gift ideas.

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59 Comments

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  4. Claire,
    These truly are "gorgeous"! I'd like to include these in a roundup post on my blog, if that's okay. I might also use another project of yours as well. If for some reason you are not comfortable with this, please let me know. The post will be up on the 6th but I will gladly remove links if I hear otherwise. 🙂
    Angela

    1. Thank you. Angela you are welcome to use a project in a round up. You can use one photo for each project as long as there is a clear link back to Pillarboxblue.

  5. Claire,
    You are so clever and talented. I adore every one of your projects! This is fabulous and thanks for sharing!

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  9. What a cool and original idea Claire. I also love to use fabric to wrap around anything that looks ugly to me or to add some zip. This was insanely creative of you. Visiting as a fellow contributor to the blog hop.

  10. Just popping back in to say thanks so much for sharing your awesome bird cages at Vintage Charm

  11. Hangers! I would have never seen that coming. These are precious! They remind me of my visit to Maui... such a neat vibe!

  12. Awwwww, how sweet! Great tutorial on how to make these. We have a generous stash of wire hangers from the dry cleaners...perfect project for those!

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