Driftwood and Sea Glass chime

My girlfriends and I got together for craft night last weekend, and, as always, we had a great time. Carrie came up with the idea to make driftwood and sea glass chimes (if you can call them that).  After a delicious dinner and a bottle of wine, we began to tackle our craft.

We started with individual pieces of driftwood that Carrie collected on a family vacation. Apparently she was teased for collecting the wood — I think it was a fabulous idea, don’t you?

Once we picked which piece of wood we wanted, I got started on mine. Originally, I started to make mine with fishing wire. I got really frustrated with that, so I made mine with wire and chain. So to start my chime, I wrapped wire around each end of the driftwood and secured it around itself to create a hook to hang the finished chime from. Carrie and Amy used twine for this, and it worked great. It also looked really nice.

Like I said, I started mine with fishing wire. We watched a tutorial from Martha Stewart, and even she commented that the fishing wire was a pain. Clearly she, Carrie and Amy all have more patience than I do, because they made it work. I think the reason our wire wasn’t super easy to work with was because it was a bit thicker, so if you want to try this project on your own, I definitely recommend using a thin fishing line.

If you want to use fishing line, Carrie and Amy both did theirs differently. Carrie tied knots around each piece of sea glass and sealed the knot with super glue. Amy, on the other hand, avoided the knots and simply glued the wire to the glass with the super glue. She said one piece fell off at home, but it is holding up well.

Like I said, I got sick of the fishing wire and the knots, so I broke out the jewelry wire and chain. Sometimes working with a familiar material is just better.

After I created a handle to the driftwood, I lined the sea glass up in an ombre pattern. I ended up only using half of these, but you get the idea.

Then, I wrapped each piece of sea glass with wire, creating a loop at the top to attach it to the chain.

Once all of my glass was wrapped with wire, I attached each piece to one of my three chain strands. Then, to finish the chime, I attached the chain to the piece of driftwood using jewelry wire.

Sorry for the cruddy picture and the not-so-in-depth tutorial. It’s a girls’ night first and foremost, so blogging has to come second!

Anyway, here’s the finished product!

I love the colors of the glass, and now I want to go hunting for drift wood and real sea glass (these were from Michaels).

Have a great day!