Spoon wind chime tutorial

Spring is here and it's time to spruce things up outdoors! We are fortunate to have a great front porch, and once I started treating it as a 'room,' it's been fun to decorate.

Years before there was Pinterest, somehow I got the idea to make wind chimes out of a set of old flatware. I scoured garage sales and antique stores and found exactly what I needed for the job. Today I decided to restring the spoons and thought I would share the project with you.

I bought this at an antique store on Cape Cod. It looked much better when I bought it, but it's been outside exposed to the elements since then, so is showing some wear. At first I thought it had to do with canning, but apparently it's a roasting pan. Those interested can buy one on eBay for a starting bid of $8.99 - I bought mine for much less, I'm sure!

Next come the spoons. I decided to use all spoons in my set, although I've seen some nice ones with all forks.

After hanging outside for awhile, they've developed a nice patina. I think they're silver plated, which produces a nice sound. As you can see, we drilled holes in the ends to thread the wire through. You do have to use a special drill bit for this or it won't penetrate and will break the bit.

I threaded the wire through the holes in the roaster and then tied it off on both ends of the spoons, making a quadruple knot. I pulled on it with the pliers just to make sure it was strong enough.

I used a heavier gauge wire to make a hanger with, which requires wire cutters and pliers. Nothing fancy, but it does the trick. You could even string beads on the wire for added decoration.

For the spoons, I used tiger tail wire from my beading box so it's strong yet flexible enough to let the spoons move in the breeze. They sound wonderful!