Teapot Wind Chime Tutorial

This is another one of those things that I didn't plan on making a tutorial out of. But since it turned out beyond awesome, I want to share it with the world!:D

It is...
Drum-roll please!

A teapot wind chime!

Matt and I made this baby after we saw a teapot wind chime at a cute little store downtown. The wind chimey part on that one was just spoons instead of our skeleton keys. We also added an old bell to the middle of ours.

That's the background story, but how did we acquire the "stuff" to make it? Well I got the silver-plated teapot from our local Freecycle. Someone offered it and I snatched it up like hotcakes!;) The keys we got from a wedding we attended. They had a piece of an old door with nails sticking out all over it and the keys were hung on the nails with the place cards tied to the keys with hemp. Cool, huh? So we collected all of our family's place cards, and keys, and found a couple keys while cleaning out a cabinet in the dining room. But we still needed something for the middle that would make a nice sound when it hit the keys. So we hit up some antique stores and found an old bell. The middle of the bell, the little dingy thing (yes that is correct terminology), is wood!

The bell cost us $2.

Because we had to buy more hemp the entire wind chime cost us about $5!

So, the how-to:

You will need:

• A metal tea pot (ours was silver-plated)
• Keys, or something that will make a chiming noise
• A bell, or something for the middle that will hit the outside "stuff" and make them ding (does that make sense?)
• Hemp, or another kind of "tough" string
• A drill and a 1/8 inch drill bit
• 5 minute epoxy

If you are using keys, you will want to cut a piece of hemp for each key long enough to hang your keys when folded in half. So basically twice as long as you want your keys to hang from the teapot. And you want to fold the piece of hemp in half and loop it through the key as shown above. We did 8 keys. Also do that for your bell.

Next you are going to drill holes evenly in a circle through the bottom of your teapot. So since we had 8 keys we made 8 holes. This is easiest when you flip the teapot upside-down and draw a circle with a compass (you know, those things we used in math class) on the bottom of the teapot and drill the holes around the circle. And drill one hole in the middle for the bell. (Matt did this part. Me+drill+metal teapot=bad idea)

Then you need to fit some small hands in there and thread both pieces of hemp for each key through a hole and tie a good, tight knot. Also do that for the bell. (I did this part, Matt was not going to be fitting his hands in there)

After you have all your hemp threaded and knotted, you want to do the epoxy on the lid of the teapot to hold it down when you hang it. So you need to squeeze the epoxy on a piece of cardboard, or something else that is equally thick, and mix the two sides together really well with the little Popsicle stick they give you. Then use the stick to apply the epoxy all over the underneath of the lid. Close the lid and wipe any extra epoxy that leaks out with a paper towel. Keep the lid closed tightly somehow while the epoxy dries. Matt just held ours down. After that is good and dry, we decided to stuff a paper towel in the spout of the teapot and seal it off with epoxy at the top so no bees could get in there and make a home;) That step is optional but strongly recommended.
*Make sure you seal the lid AFTER you thread and tie your keys!*

Cut a piece of hemp long enough to fold in half and loop through the top of the teapot. Fold it, loop it, tie it off at the top really well and hang it up!

I love ours, it's our on our front porch:D

Again, this was a great project to do with Matt. I love projects that we do together! And we will always have this special, unique teapot wind chime on our front porch.

If you make one, leave a link to it in the comment section!

Until next time, toodles!










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