Vintage Tart Tin Bird Cages for Valentine’s Day

I often come across vintage tart tins in all sorts of shapes and sizes when out vintage shopping. Do you? In today’s post we’re going to use some of them to create vintage tart tin birdcages for Valentine’s Day.

how to turn vintage tart pans into valentine bird cages adirondackgirlatheart.comNote: This post contains affiliate links for [the same or similar] products used to complete this project. This is both for your convenience as well as to support my website, since I receive a small compensation whenever you click on a link and make any sort of purchase, for which I thank you. See my full disclosure here.

Materials to Make Tart Tin Bird Cages

supplies for tart pan love bird cages

Materials:

How to Make Tart Tin Bird Cages

hot glue and wire to hold things

Step 1: Make the Cage: Cut 6 10″ pieces of 20 gauge wire and lightly bend them into U-shapes. You’re going to connect them with some of the finer paddle wire right at the point where they intersect when you put them into a bird cage shape.

Next, apply some hot glue over the fine wire to secure it. To “hide” the hot glue, I wrapped it with some more wire.

But you don’t have to worry too much about hiding the glue because it will end up pretty much covered by ribbon later on.

how to hot glue wire to tart pan

Step 2: Attach the Cage to the Tart Tin: Next you’re going to secure the wire cage to the tart pan bottom using hot glue. Don’t get to partiular about how you do this since you’ll be covering the glue splotches later on with Spanish or green moss.

Make sure to evenly space the six wires around the inside of your tart pan.

adding the swing

Step 3: Make the Hanging Loop: Cut a 12″ piece of paddle wire. Fold it in half and make a loop in the center by wrapping it around a pencil or a dowel. Secure it to the top of your cage by twisting the wire underneath your wire-wrapped hot glue blob.

You should have two pieces of wire hanging down for your swing.

tart pan love bird cage

Step 4: Make a Bird Perch: Cut a 2″ piece of a small dowel or shish kabob skewer and wrap the wire (that’s hanging down after you made the loop above) around each end.

Step 5: Attach Birds: Hot glue your birds (I bought mine at Michael’s) onto their perch and cover the bottom of the tart pan with some moss.

Step 6: Button Flowers (optional): Add some vintage button flowers if you like. Hot glue the buttons onto small pieces of the 20 gauge wire and tuck them into the moss.

Tart pan bird cage

Step 7: Add Ribbon: Tie on a piece of ribbon along with a tag containing a “love” sentiment like, “love you more” or “je t’aime”.

tart pan love bird cage

Here it is all ready to display for Valentine’s Day.

tart pan bird cage with ironstone

It looks nice with ironstone as a back-drop.

A Hanging Loop Alternative

tart pan bird cage

An alternative way to secure your bird cage wires together and create a hanging loop is to lightly fold the wire in half, and then twist them together (at the bend) into a loop.

tart pan love bird cage

That’s how I made this one with the blue love birds.

tart pan love bird cage

I make the paper tags by printing the phrases on manila card stock, cutting them out, and punching a small hole in the end.

close up of ribbon and tag

A little bit of ribbon adds some color.

vintage tart pan love bird cage

For this version, I used a vintage square tart tin and made the edge more festive by attaching some pretty red and white trim.

vintage tart pan bird cage

The front of the pan look vacant, so I added a “happy valentine’s” tag.

tart pan bird cage

I added a few button flowers as well.

ironstone cupboard with tart pan bird cages

They’re adding some holiday cheer to my ironstone cupboard right now.

three vintage tart tin bird cages

I think some of my younger nieces and nephews will find them fascinating, as they do most things that come in miniature sizes.

I hope you enjoyed today’s vintage-y project; they’re the very best kind, aren’t they?

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15 Comments

  1. These are so sweet, Diana! Such a cute little gift! Keeping you in my prayers today, my friend…xo

  2. These are so cute! I immediately jumped ahead to Easter chicks and eggs! I need more tart pans! Continuing to pray for you and yours!

  3. Those are cute as can be, Diana! I love the birds on the swing. I was thinking that I might use jute to hang the swing instead of the wire–just for some different texture. But I might just be complicating things for my self if I do that!

    Just want you to know that I am thinking of you and your family every day and sending prayers and healing energy, which is really love.

  4. I’ve been hoarding tart pans for years waiting for the best way to use them. Your sweet wee bird cages nailed it! I’ll probably turn mine into ornaments. SO CUTE! Thanks for sharing and inspiring us Diana.

    Continuing prayers for you.

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