The Best Anniversary Gift (especially 7th or 22nd!)

 

Genuine Copper Wind Chime
The Ideal Anniversary Gift
Available at CoastChimes.ca

Looking for a unique and meaningful anniversary gift? A genuine copper wind chime makes a wonderful choice. Copper is the traditional gift for both the 7th and 22nd wedding anniversaries, and a handcrafted wind chime is a lasting symbol of beauty, harmony, and love. When the breeze makes gentle music, you will recall your love for one another.

Every Coast Chimes copper wind chime is designed to age gracefully, developing a natural patina that only becomes more beautiful with time—just like a long and happy marriage.

Find the perfect copper wind chime gift at CoastChimes.ca

Natural Driftwood Copper Wind Chime, Coast Chimes

 Natural Driftwood Copper Wind Chime

by Coast Chimes

Natural materials such as driftwood and beach stones mesh with copper chimes so nicely. They are made for each other! All that better, with wind chimes most often being out in the yard or garden, where everything in a Coast Chimes wind chime integrates, never clashes.

Visit the Driftwood and the Beach Stone collections of Coast Chimes to explore the many options.

Happy New Year, from Coast Chimes

Looking Forward Towards Brighter Days
Sunshine Coast BC Forest Hike
December 28, 2020

Happy New Year, and a BIG thank you to all the friends and fans of Coast Chimes for making 2020 a pretty darn great year, despite all the challenges.

It was super frustrating and sad to cancel the annual Art Craw in October. The Sunshine Coast Art Crawl became a major high-point with so many people visiting and inflating my ego, but I simply could not see it working well for Coast Chimes in the midst of a pandemic. On a bright note, online sales jumped dramatically, and it was fantastic to see so many returning and new customers. Deeply appreciated!

The new year starts; time to reflect, take extra-long hikes, and rebuild stock that took a major hit. I've already made good progress-- the hugely popular anniversary copper wind chimes are now back in stock, as shown in the picture below. Soon I will focus on kaleidoscope wind chimes and free standing kaleidoscope suncatchers... maybe  have some by the end of the month.

Best wishes for 2021!

 

Copper Wind Chime for Seventh Wedding Anniversary Gift, or Beauty Lovers

7 Copper Chimes Wind Chime, Coast Chimes

Perfect 7th Anniversary Gift

Perfect for Lovers of Beauty

$185, Free Shipping, at Coast Chimes

I've made my signature 5 chime copper wind chime for years: it's very popular! Lots of people buy it for gifts, and especially for the seventh wedding anniversary, since that one is copper. I've had numerous requests for the same outstanding wind chime, but with 7 chimes, and so I am now stocking that. It's gorgeous!

As with the one with 5 chimes, it is exceptionally well made, with polished, brushed, and antiqued copper, handmade hardware, all copper (ie, no fishing line, plastic), a solid red cedar roundel treated with hand rubbed oil. The beach stone clapper / striker resonates nicely against the copper chimes.

This is great for the seventh wedding celebration, or for anyone who enjoys quality and beauty.

Copper Wind Chimes

Handcrafted Hardware for Coast Chimes Large
Copper Chimes

At the end of 2019, I was surprised to discover only one set of copper wind chimes left in stock (thank you, to all my customers!). So 2020 is starting with making lots of new chimes. They take a long time to make, due to all the handcrafted hardware, and also the care needed to produce the lovely finish on the copper chimes. I love taking that time and paying attention to each detail, creating a truly exceptional wind chime.

Because the unique top sections (the original art) all uses the same base copper wind chimes, I often find myself with many top sections and not that many bottom chime sections. So if you visit my website, you will still find a great selection of wind chime designs, even though I am not fully caught up on the chime sections. 

To see all the beautiful copper wind chimes, visit Coast Chimes

Copper Wind Chime by Coast Chimes

$135 with Free Shipping

Outdoor Glass and Copper Garden Yard Decor

Kaleidoscope Wind Chime
$175
See it at Coast Chimes

As popular as it is beautiful: the Coast Chimes kaleidoscope wind chime. It looks great anywhere, anytime, but to see it at its best it should be hung where the morning and late afternoon sunlight can filter through the glass from behind: an awesome show of brilliant colours!

This wind chime is extremely well made-- like all Coast Chimes products. The glass pieces are loosely trapped between two plates of extra-thick glass in a red cedar box frame. All the red cedar has been treated with an exceptional tung nut oil finish.

The five copper chimes are the pride of Coast Chimes. The process is long, but the results are striking. The copper is cut, double sanded, treated with a reactive (this finish will not peel or flake), scrubbed with steel wool, and polished. There are no strings or fishing line: all copper connections. This wind chime sounds great due to the beach stone clapper, or striker-- copper is soft, so a really hard clapper produces the sweetest sound.

Find this wind chime and other great creations at the Coast Chimes website. $10 express shipping on all orders.

Making Exceptional Copper Wind Chimes

Handmade Copper Chimes, two sets of Copper Wind Chimes
Available at Coast Chimes

I sometimes see website tutorials on making your own copper wind chimes at home. They make it sound like you can read two paragraphs and make great chimes. I have to laugh. I've been making copper wind chimes for twenty years, thousands of sets, and I am still learning!

Above are some of the components that I hand make for my wind chimes. And ' hand make' should be underlined and bold. Sure, you can just saw up some copper pipes and string them onto a chunk of plywood with some fishing line. But that is not going to be beautiful, nor long-lasting.

From the old growth reclaimed red cedar roundel to the hand formed copper hooklets, these are the elements that take time, skill and experience. Most people figure out how to do something, and get better and faster at it. I have found with my chimes that I learned how to do them, and got better and slower at it. These days, I take far more care and pay far more attention to each element. They are a source of enormous pride for me, and so it's all worth it. And I know that no one is going to be reading a short tutorial and making anything even close to what I do.

Amazing Driftwood Wind Chime

Click on the image to see it larger

Natural Pacific Driftwood

Five Handcrafted Copper Chimes

Visit my website for details or to purchase: Coast Chimes

Driftwood is so beautiful: I love it! But it is challenging to find really nice driftwood around here, on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. The tides and waves can treat the wood harshly, so while there is tons and tons of wood, it is often too beat up.

When I find a particularly gorgeous piece, and everything clicks together, the result can be striking. For example, the wind chime above. One word: Beautiful.

I could not decide whether I liked it best with copper chimes, or with iron chimes, so I photographed it with both. It's a personal choice.

Where There's a Will There's a Way

Click on the picture to see it largerCobalt blue beach glass inspired suncatcher with handmade copper chimes
For more information or to see other copper chimes, Click Here.

I'm a believer in that saying, 'where there's a will, there's a way.' The trouble is, it's easy to be lazy and not even try, specially when 'trying' takes a lot of effort.

For years I had access to inexpensive silver-colored chimes. I have sold a ton of suncatchers with those. But it always bothered me. The silver color struck me as out of synch with the copper. It was okay with the cobalt blue, but, I mean, my thing is copper! It also bothered me to use something no doubt mass produced in China. That's not my bag.

It was so easy! Just buy a bunch of the little chimes and have my son tie them onto my handmade copper hangers. Too easy; not good enough.

Several times I did take some initiative and cut my own chimes. First from stainless steel. Such hard metal! It was a real pain to cut and drill, and in the end they really were not much better looking than the cheap aluminum chimes. Then I tried copper tubing. Although I thought those looked pretty good, they didn't sound all that great.

I never really tried. Lazy.

The other day I finally gave this a lot of thought and arrived at what I hoped would be a solution. Where there is a will, there is a way!

Using small diameter rolled copper, I succeeded. A ton of work, but worth it! Here are the steps involved:

Cut the copper

Straighten it

Bore it with a drill

Re-straighten

Cut holes for hanging

Re-bore

Heat each chime to a very high temperature, and quickly submerge in ice water to harden the copper (so it can't bend easily, and primarily to produce a sharper, sweeter sound)

Double brush each chime

Polish each chime

Make the copper hangers

Wait for son to tie the chimes

Is it worth all that work? Yes.

A Steal?

Huh~ I had a neat little flash thing here showing a listing from eBay, but the auction ended a long time ago, and the player showed... nothing. So I decided to revise and show the neat little earrings I make and give to customers. Whenever anybody orders anything at all, I always include a free set as a little thank you gift. Sometimes the emails I get lead me to believe the customer is as excited to receive the earrings as the windchime!

Only a little more than a day to go, and such a low price? Looks bad for me. Good for some lucky bidder. Oh well, things can change in a day. I hope so. (things did change~ I got an okay price~-- updated March 1, 2008)

Customers Have Great Memories

Cat's-eye marbles deluxe wind chime. Five polished copper chimes with a beach stone clapper. Tung nut oiled red cedar. Click here for more information, or to buy it.

I make quite a few different styles of wind chimes, so it's not surprising that sometimes I forget about a certain type. I am always happy when a customer comes along and ask about this or that type of wind chime, reminding me that I haven't made one for a long time. That's what happened with this cat's-eye style. It must be over a year since I made one, and I had pretty much forgotten all about them. Until someone wrote. Another advantage to selling through the Internet~ direct communication.

Bigger can be Better

Large Driftwood Double Copper Wind Chime ~ a Treat for the Eyes, and the Ears. See other large works in my eBay store, or the major works page on my website.

Sometimes I really enjoy making big works. I forget that one day I will have to pack them and ship. There are strict limits on both size and weight, so always my first thought when the 'sold' notice comes through is "Yipee!" followed shortly by "Oh, Oh" as I realize what a job it will be to pack, and also wondering if it might be too big, too heavy. As I've made more and more large pieces, I have become a little more clever in designing them for easier packing. But it's still quite a chore.

99 cents

99 cents? I hope not. But that's what I listed this Beach Glass inspired Kaleidoscope wind chime at on eBay. So far, it's still at 99 cents. Five heavy copper chimes with a beach stone clapper. Eco-friendly high-quality tung nut oil rubbed red cedar. Sweet. For more information, or to bid, click here.

I seem to be going nuts these days with crazy listing prices. As though it was not bad enough to have my $255 cobalt blue beach glass inspired wind chime sitting at $41, I just had to go ahead and list this kaleidoscope wind chime for 99 cents. A fool for punishment, I guess. Well, I've had dozens of emails from people wishing they could afford my work. This might just be their chance.

Oh Boy, Copper Prices Soar~ Again!

Heavy copper chimes. Yeah, I know, they have to find the stuff, dig it up, melt it down etc. etc. But still. Over a two hundred percent price increase in two years? That hurts.

Thirty day prices for copper

Not so long ago, I used to think it was such a great deal~ a length of heavy copper for under $10. Then it went up. Then it went up a lot! At $17, I stopped thinking it was such a great deal. At $23, I started to freak out. Now at $33, I am starting to figure out why they put the copper and gold charts on the same page! It's not just the price increase: it's how fast it is going up. Over 200% in such a short time. Ouch.

Well, I may have to raise my prices, or people will start buying my work just to strip the copper!