Take one wire, whichever colour, and string the beads through and twist the wire together to form a loop. Cut off the excess end, leaving about 3" to pierce the cake.
Take 3 wires and form loops in increasing sizes, with the smallest being slightly bigger than the little beaded loop. See picture above to see what I mean. Again, trim ends as necessary.
Take 6 wires, 3 of each colour, and twist them around a pencil, to get that twisty look, leaving about 3" free at the end to be inserted into the cake. See finished cake.
The other 6 wires will be inserted in at various heights, as they are. See finished cake.
Feathers
Number of feathers are up to you, we've used 4 blue and 3 purple here. Trim the bottom end of the feathers slightly but pushing the actual feathery bit into the cake is not a problem.
We've placed the decorations off centre, to the front, making the cake have an obvious front and back. You can follow suit, or go for a centrepiece effect.
Place the ribbon around the base of the cake, securing with a touch of edible glue or even a bobby pin pushed into the cake. Just remember to take it out before serving!
Insert the beaded loop in first, followed by the other 3 loops in ascending order, see picture
Insert the feathers all around
Next come the straight wires. Place them all in the cake in a slight arc. Then using a pair of scissors, snip the tops off, giving them a graduated look.
The twisters come next, inserted at various points to complete the look, see tall picture below
Finally, glue a small number of the dragées around the cake just to "fill up" the empty look.