DIY: Cutlery wind chime

Summertime and you’re spending more time outside and hopefully in your garden. An easy DIY for adding charm to your outdoor oasis is to create a wind chime out of thrifted cutlery. You can always find secondhand knives, forks and spoons at your local thrift store. Here’s a simple way to upcycle those treasures!

Supplies:

• cutlery – 6 to 8 knives, forks and/or spoons
• fishing wire
• scissors
• pliers
• galvanized wire
• beads
• thrifted item to hang the wind chime from

The next time you’re at your local Salvation Army Thrift Store try to find various pieces of silverware. I used 6 forks and spoons for my DIY wind chime. Search for silverware that’s a bit different or has an interesting design.

You’ll also want to source a secondhand item that you can use to hang your wind chime from. I found this base for a glass vase that I thought would work perfectly!

Next you’ll need to purchase some galvanized wire – I found this at my local dollar store. This is for wrapping around the cutlery. If you have the right tools you can always drill a hole in the top of the cutlery to hang them.

Use your pliers to cut a piece of galvanized wire that’s approximately 8 inches long.

Loosely fold the wire in half to create a loop – this is for hanging the cutlery. Place it on the back top of the cutlery and hold it in place with your pliers.

Wrap the wire around the cutlery.

Follow this step for all of the silverware until each piece is wrapped in galvanized wire.

Now you’re ready to add the fishing wire and some beads to each piece of silverware. First cut a piece of fishing wire that’s approximately 2 feet long. Place one end through the loop you created on your silverware and pull it through so both ends are the same length. Tie a knot then add your beads – the knot is to hold the beads in place. The placement of the beads is up to you.

Once you’ve done this step for all of the cutlery you can now tie each piece to your hanger. When adding the silverware test the placement since you want each piece of cutlery to be at the same height so they hit each other to make the chime.

Once you’ve added all of the silverware, you can create a hanger for the wind chime. You can use rope, jute, wire or a chain. For mine I reused a chain hanger I had.

And you’re done! Next is to hang it and enjoy the magic it makes when it’s windy. Another option for this DIY is to repurpose cookie cutters or old keys.