Live, Life With Traveling

Live, Life With Traveling And Sea Shells Around

Making a seashell wind chime is an excellent way to carry a piece of the ocean into your house. When you have your wind chime set up, you will be reminded of your time at the beach anytime you look at or hear your wind chimes.

Seashell wind chimes are a perfect art because they don't need any difficult measures to put together (unlike traditional wind chimes that can be made to be very specific, with each pipe specifically cut and tuned to create a specific sound when hit).

Many of the supplies you will need to assemble your seashell wind chimes are likely to be included in your house.

What You'll Need

You would, of course, need some seashells to make your seashell wind chime. Take the time to collect Sanibel Island shells that can be used exclusively for your wind chime.

Bear in mind the visual appeal as well as the sounds that various shells of various sizes and shapes produce. You'll just need to use your imagination to come up with a substance that the shells can strike to make a sound.

Much as a mallet is required to get the correct sound from a xylophone, you will need some kind of material that produces a sound when struck by seashells. This feature is also known as a dangler.

Although some people like a bell or a tuned piece of pipe in the middle of their wind chime, others find the clacking of the shells to be calming. Simply changing the number and location of the shells will produce a significantly different pitch.

Other materials used include a drill, string or rope, and anything to hang the chime with (i.e. a wire hanger, a store-bought hook, etc.)

Put It Together

Weight and balance are two important things to remember when building your wind chime. Your wind chime should be soft enough to be lifted by a slight breeze but still being level or balanced enough to hang on its own.

Each seashell must be drilled with a hole so that it can be suspended by a thread. To provide a greater variety of notes, cut the thread to various lengths.

To measure the tones, suspend each one with a string and strike it with the dangler or mallet you want to use.

Make the foundation for all of the shells to hang from until you've added all of the shells to string (it's okay to have multiple shells at various points on the same piece of string). A round piece of cardboard or a paper plate are examples of this base material.

Drill holes along the base's perimeter. Each string of shells would need one hole. Fix the seashells to the floor. If your seashell threads are longer than about a foot, consider adding a secondary base halfway down the chime.

This secondary base, like the primary base, is connected to the chime which will aid in keeping the individual strands of shells untangled.

If you're using a dangler, make sure it's suspended from the middle of the foundation and that the shell strings are spaced so they touch the dangler as the chimes are blown.

You can need to lengthen or shorten the string of shells until they are arranged in the best way for the sound and look you like.

The closer the shells are to each other, the louder their echo would be. Loop and a hook may be used to hang your wind chime from your porch or in a doorway.