Natural Pacific Beach Stone Wind Chime

Natural Pacific Beach Stone Wind Chime

Five Antiqued Copper Chimes

Find it at Coast Chimes

Pretty much all my designs are heavily inspired by the beautiful natural environment in which I am fortunate enough to live in-- the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia. But many of my designs actually use materials found in nature, right on my doorstep.

This wind chime is a prime example of that. The stones come from my local beach, where I spend a good deal of time selecting them. At home, I put them together in what I find to be an appealing arrangement, and then I drill through each stone to connect them with a very strong copper wire.

The chimes take even more time. Raw copper is okay, but with a lot of elbow grease and some high-quality products, that copper can really glow. Also, I spent many years tweaking the design, until I found exactly what I wanted: beauty, durability, pleasant sound.

Why not visit Coast Chimes and browse all the amazing wind chimes and suncatchers? There is free shipping to the USA and Canada, even for big, heavy items like this impressive wind chime.

Beach Combing Wind Chime

Beach Comber's Natural
Pacific Driftwood and Beach Stone Wind Chime
$195 at Coast Chimes

Can you believe that part of my job description is beach combing? How cool is that! I am fortunate to live in a place where there are great natural stones and driftwood, and that I just have to do a long hike to find them.

A big difference between the stones and driftwood and my usual artist-made beach glass is that the glass looks its best in sunlight; the stones and driftwood when it is raining, and they get dark and glossy. But whether glass or stone or driftwood, all my designs look great anywhere, anytime.

Visit my website to see all by designs: Coast Chimes.

Beach Stones and Driftwood Make Really Great Wind Chimes

West Coast Driftwood, Beach Stone, Glass & Copper
Wind Chime
$95 Coast Chimes

Spending a lot of time walking along the local beaches searching for great driftwood and wonderful beach stones is part of my job. A good part! The second part is searching through all the driftwood, stones, and glass pieces I have in my workshop, and combining them to make a creation that works for me aesthetically. The wind chime pictured above is an example of success.

Finally my shipment of new diamond bits, long needed for drilling beach stones, has arrived, and there will be many new works appearing on my website featuring beach stones. You can see all the beach stone works HERE, and all the driftwood works HERE.

West Coast Wind Chime Beach Stones Driftwood Copper: Coast Chimes

West Coast Driftwood & Beach Stones
Wind Chime
Five Copper Chimes
Coast Chimes

Part of my job is to go beach combing-- quite a perk! Although there are tons of driftwood here on the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada, it is actually quite challenging to find pieces suitable for my needs. Most pieces are way, way too large, and many of the smaller pieces are all smashed up. So I spend quite a few hours on the beach, looking for the 'good' stuff.

The design above is popular. I have been out of stock for several weeks, and only now am I starting to get a few more set to list on my website. Once I have all of them made, and photographed, i plan to place them on my website all at the same time. Probably around June 16-20th.

I also plan to make a few of the smaller chimes with driftwood and beach stones: I have some amazing wood for those. So keep an eye on Coast Chimes to see all these new West Coast chimes.

Natural Pacific Driftwood and Beach Stone Wind Chimes

Natural Pacific Driftwood Wind Chime
Beach Stone
5 Large Copper Chimes

I've started putting together some cool new wind chimes with the beach stones and driftwood from my recent beach combing working holiday to the west coast of Vancouver Island and Washington State. These are such wonderful materials! The stones are so nicely rounded and shaped; the driftwood hard and smooth.

You can find these new works, and plenty of older wonderful ones too, on my website by going to the Beach Stone pages and the Driftwood pages.

Wild West Coast, Olympic Peninsula Beach Combing

Olympic Peninsula, Wild West Coast, Beach Combing Paradise

I started 25 years ago making wind chimes and sun catchers from sea glass and copper. I still make them from those materials, but I now use a lot of beach stone and driftwood too.

I used to think that our local Sunshine Coast beaches were perhaps the best in the world for beach stones, and okay for driftwood. Last year I discovered that some beaches along the open west coast are far superior for these materials. I just got back from yet another wonderful week of beach combing in this area, and this time I took plenty of stones and wood back home with me.

I can't wait to get started on a fresh collection of wild west coast wind chimes, using these materials.

Visit my website to see the sort of works I do using natural materials: 

Coast Chimes beach stones

Coast Chimes drift wood

Olympic Peninsula, Beautiful, Beautiful Area

Olympic Peninsula, March 2016

Last year at this time I quickly passed through the Olympic Peninsula.I was amazed by the beauty. I was also so impressed by the beach stones and driftwood (I use both to make wind chimes). I took a little of my beach combing finds home with me last year, and immediately regretted both not spending more time on the Peninsula, and also not taking home more raw materials.

So I went back.

The Olympic Peninsula truly is one of the most awesome areas I have ever explored. And it definitely has some of the finest beach stones and driftwood I have ever enjoyed discovering. This year, I took home plenty for my work, and I am so excited to soon start making things. You can see the types of things I make with these materials on my website: Coast Chimes.

Nine days of hiking, fine resorts, beach combing was not enough. I probably have to go back next year!