Sunday 10 June 2012

The Craftess Creates Chimes


Project # 2: Create Wooden Wind Chimes


Although I love wind chimes, I do not reside alone at this domicile and I don't like hearing them clanging like a herd of bell-wearing stampeding cattle whenever the wind decides to come calling.

Pack rat that I am, I have kept all of the wooden incense holders that I have acquired over the years and had the idea some years ago that I should perhaps make some kind of a wind chime out of them--the wood tapping together is a pleasant, unobtrusive sound. At the time I was thinking that I would need a drill, a ring and some cord and this thought of a project became this monster amount of work that I was not willing to undertake. 

Indeed, many years later when I received a box full of bottles and some beaded discs that at first brought to mind a coaster, I was not thinking wind chime. I was thinking craft time, though.


Upon closer inspection these beaded discs would not work all that well for a coaster--not in my case because they are made with metal wire and not thread or line and I don't need them scratching up any surfaces. They were, however, very sturdy and I had six of them. 


What I was going to do with them I had still had no idea.


It was after the box had remained for us to kick around the floor for a week or so that my significant other picked up three of the discs and made them into a triangle shape. Why I had not thought of that, I had no idea--and suddenly I was scheming on how to create a wind chime with these discs held in a triangle instead of hanging from a ring.

I pulled out my fishing line and my acrylic paints, put some newspaper down on the table and prepared to paint. The only thing was that though I had been collecting, I only had five incense holders. Thankfully they are akin to kindling and break easily--splitting them into smaller pieces worked well. Unsure of whether to go with a royal purple or a navy blue, I opted to use both--one color on each side. 

While they were drying, I tied the discs together with fishing line--three joins per side. From there I strung more line through a few of the top triangles and brought them together with a few plastic beads that I had lying around, choosing black and red ones. Now I had something to hang it with.

When the wooden bits were dry, I was irritated to find that some of them had stuck to the newspaper and left white paper fibers on my nice paint job in a few edges--that and I missed the side of one completely, somehow. Not wanting to pull my paints back out and dirty my paint brush again, I pondered on it for a minute before grabbing my permanent red felt and coloring over the white parts (which took surprisingly well) and the parts I had missed. The result was actually quite neat.

Instead of spending the time drilling or anything like that, I simply chose the largest end of my painted wooden bits and tied the fishing line around it, allowing the point to dangle downwards. Gravity works. ^.^ I experimented with the lengths and configuration of the 'chimes'--one turned out rather symmetrical without me intending it to be and the other has a neat pattern, though with no real sense of order. The one without the sense of order stayed with me (why are we not surprised), and the other I gifted to the one who gave me the box.

This is what they looked like just after completion, 

temporarily dangling from the ceiling fan:



The best thing is that not only is the wood a nice, light sound the paint made their noises just a little quieter. Due to the varying sizes of the chimes, both wind chimes have a unique sound and make noise with soft wind.

The only thing is that because they are metal discs there may be the potential for rust, and thus mine is staying under the cover of the porch (much like a certain set of tomatoes from a certain garden) and the other one is adding to the decor in a spare bedroom with a set of awesome paintings with a Native American theme, so the wood and the bead work compliment the existing motif. This was a pleasant surprise to make something that fits in well elsewhere without doing any research or actual planning on the manner. Sometimes, things just work out. Me gusta.

Not an issue for the one that is kept elsewhere indoors, mine is outside at the mercy of the wind--and let's just say after every windy day or night I have to spend a few minutes disentangling all of the spun-up chimes, but I don't mind too much. There has been a few times where I am staring at it going, "where did the wind learn to tie knots? Could it weave me a tapestry while it's at it?" but that was after one heck of a storm. I was half expecting to find it on the lawn, so all in all it was a win. ^.^


In addition to the soothing sounds, when the sun streams through the beads it glitters and I like things that glitter. Add to that the fact that I love things that hang from other things and I am a happy little craftess.



©reated by ŊetHerŊøte  

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