My kids go to Old Orchard Beach in Maine for a week with their grandparents every summer and they always come home with a bucket full of seashells that they picked up off the beach. Most of them are broken and bleached white from the salt and sun. Since they spend the time finding them and it’s a memory that they make each summer, I thought it would be great to actually turn them into something – something that, when looked at, remind them of the amazing time they have with their grandparents. After hearing them clink around in the bucket, I thought that they would make perfect Seashell wind chimes!

DIY Seashell Wind Chimes Tutorial

I made a trip to Michaels and picked up a starfish and some vase filler (that resembled sea glass and only cost $1.50 – score!).

I also stole fishing line from my sons tackle box and this is what we made:
Seashell Wind Chime

How to make Wind Chimes

First I used a small drill bit and drilled through the starfish, shells and vase filler:

The next step is to string the hanging portion of the chimes.

First, I tied a knot in the fishing line- just keep knotting until it is big enough so that it can’t be pulled through the hole you made on the shells and glass. Repeat for each piece of shell/glass that you want to add to the line.

I used three shells per line and three of the glass pieces.
 You’ll need to create a total of five of these. The key is to space everything the same so that the shells and glass have the chance to clink together when the wind blows.

To secure to the starfish, thread up through the bottom of the starfish and tie another knot.

You need to make sure that the knot is large so that there is no way it can slip through the hole in the starfish – it could be heavy with all the shells so really make sure it is secure!

I also added a middle line that we filled with the green glass. I made that line a tad longer than the other five lines just for appearance. Thread it through the bottom of the starfish and secure in place by tying several knots above the starfish.

The middle line is also the loop that hangs the whole thing up, so make sure you have enough line so that you can create a loop above the starfish. Create a loop at the top, feed it back through the starfish and secure with several knots at the bottom of the starfish.

Now you can hang your Seashell Wind Chimes on your porch and listen to their sweet melody and have a great memento from your beach vacation!

Something I learned: I was concentrating on the appearance of the wind chimes when picking the shells so I went small to big (top to bottom). This resulted in the top shells of the chime not touching and clinking unless there is a big gust of wind. All of the shells we picked would have worked if we had mixed and matched rather than put all the small on top and all the large on bottom – make sense?

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