Tastes of Culture

Windchimes or suncatchers, I think they are great! So effective and yet so very simple to make in your own home, using some of our everyday items. You will find this relatively easy to do by simply using some of your old CD’s.

This sounds simple enough, so how can I start? And with what? Some CD’s, scissors, adhesive, bells and whatever you would like to use to hang this on. Twine, a very thin ribbon, string, cord, there are so many colour choices available now in local craft stores.

So, now you are feeling a bit more adventurous, let’s forge ahead! After all, you are not going to need much to complete this project. You have your CD’s, so what you now need to do, is to pick the first two up and put the labels face to face. Using your glue, simply stick these together like this, then do exactly the same with the remaining two.

Bear in mind, this idea can be adjusted to suit where you want to actually hang this. First of all, you will need to cut about 36 inches of fine ribbon. You then need half of this on each side of the first two CD’s, so go straight through the middle of these and do a tight knot on the edge which will be on the outside.

Your second CD now needs to be added to this so that it will end up on top of the first one. To do this, one string has to go through the middle of the CD and be joined with the other string and knotted at the outside edge again and then knot again.

We now need our bells. If you can, try and obtain some coloured ones, to go with your gaudy CD’s. If this is not possible, try painting your own, using an acrylic paint or nail varnish, just to keep it all colourful. The first bell needs to be attached to the two ribbons together, so that it is just on top of the two CD’s, with the next one coming about two inches above, before you fix it.

In this manner you could end up with three or four, but do leave enough cord to be able to hang your catcher at the top. I leave the choice of how you hang your bells to you. You can knot them with space above and below, or you could fix them on to the two separate strings at alternate type of spacings.

You may now decide you would like something at the bottom of your CD’s. So, how about adding two or three strings of coloured glass beads, or mix them with your bells, so that the beads will chink together. These would still help to catch the light.

This you could use with silver CD’s just the same, or use crystals instead of bells. However, plain CDs could also be jazzed up with some psychedelic paints. What fun you could have! So try experimenting!

This would hang well from a tree!