Full Moon Glass and Copper Outdoor Wind Chime

 Heavy, thick, frosted glass full moon wind chime with 7 handcrafted polished copper chimes: so cool!

When my friend offered me this giant circle of glass, I knew immediately what I would do with it. And it turned out just as I envisioned.

Visit this full moon wind chime at Coast Chimes to learn more, or to purchase.

Full Moon, 7 Copper Wind Chimes

Edge View, 1 Inch Thick

Coast Chimes Inspiration, Design

 Copper Wind Chime

$145 Free Shipping

at Coast Chimes

If you listen, customers can be a wonderful source for ideas. Thirty years ago, it was a customer who first gave me the idea for making wind chimes! From way back then to now, my designs have been inspired by nature, by trial and error, by dreaming, and by customers.

Most recently, a potential customer emailed to ask if I could make a round wood windsail for her, instead of the antiqued hammered copper diamond I use. I put that together for her, and, I must say, I like it!

When I get caught up on my fairly long to-do list, I will probably make more of these, and offer some of my wind chimes with that round windsail. I like to offer my customers as many options as possible, but whatever I offer has to be high-quality and beautiful.

See all my current stock at Coast Chimes.

Inspiration from Customers

Custom Order

Coast Chimes

It's enjoyable to hear from customers who have something special in mind, and working with them to achieve it. 

I started stocking the seven copper chime wind chimes a month or so ago, selling just the chimes with a hook to hang them, no top section. This is aimed at those who are about to celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary (copper), and it is very popular, it turns out. But it didn't take too long for someone to ask if I could maybe put a top section on it. They were thinking of maybe a beach stone.

That's a great idea! And I worked with them to choose the perfect stone, as you can see from the quickly snapped picture above. Yep, I really like that look! 

Yesterday I chose a 'daily walk / hike' to a beach where I know there a some stones similar to the one pictured above. I didn't find too many of them, but I did find several. When I get time, I'll likely make a few similar to the above wind chime for my store. It's not unusual for customers to send me in a new direction-- I have some really creative customers! I'm sure most stores, crafters, artists, do have ideas bounced off them: one just has to listen.

Sunshine Coast, BC, Gibsons

View of Snow Covered Coastal Mountains
From Gibsons, BC, Sunshine Coast, Canada

Most of my yearly sales are online, and about half of those sales are for Christmas: pre-Christmas is a very busy time for Coast Chimes. So I didn't much mind that the skies were grey, the clouds dumping rain during November and early December. But what a treat to have those skies clear and the local mountains snow dusted for this quieter, post-Christmas period! Most of the packing and shipping is done, and I have time to head out, take long walks, and enjoy the scenery.

I walk along the beach, and dream up new ideas for the weeks ahead, when I plan to devote time to creating new works to replenish my stock.

I see these mountains, this ocean, the beach, the trees, and feel so grateful to live here. Of course, I am also pleased to be able to retrieve many fine natural resources from the shoreline-- the stones, the driftwood, the sea glass. From this nature I get my inspiration and lots of my materials. What a pleasure!

Glass and Copper Wind Chime, the Start

Large Glass and Copper Wind Chime, Coast Chimes

I made my first glass and copper wind chime, quite similar to the one pictured above, and listed it on eBay about 25 years ago. eBay was new, and no one had ever seen a wind chime like this before. I listed it at .99 cents, and the bidding went crazy. It ended up somewhere north of $250, and I knew I was onto something. Shortly after, the second glass and copper wind chime I made and listed repeated the bidding frenzy, and I really knew I was onto something. In the following years things have not always been so easy. It does turn out that nothing stays the same, and this is especially true concerning the internet! With all the improvements in technology, how funny that selling something like my wind chimes has actually become much, much more challenging. I am so pleased that back when I started out it was actually simple to sell something like my wind chimes on line. Anyone starting now would be in for a much more difficult task.

The inspiration for my first glass and copper wind chime came from a customer. At the time, I was selling some single pieces of beach-style glass, with a little copper work. This woman emailed and asked if I could make her a wind chime out of my glass. I told her that would not work-- the glass would break. A little later it came to me that I could use glass for a top section, with chimes hanging beneath the glass.

Now, so many years later, I have numerous designs (and still thinking of new ones!), and also work with beach stone and driftwood. Indeed, one of the most enjoyable parts of my job is to take a long hike along the beach, looking for materials and dreaming up new ideas.

Eventually eBay went to the dogs, at least for high-end quality handcrafted works like my wind chimes. Etsy came into play just at the right time, and continues fairly strong, despite occasional bumps. My first website, made about 20 years ago and unbelievably rough, has gone through many transformations, and last week was reborn as a Shopify store: Coast Chimes

Wind Chimes, Finding Inspiration from the Past

Wind Chime, Freestanding, Double, Beach Stone base
Available at Coast Chimes

I seldom to never run out of ideas. There is always something I am looking forward to making, or something that I have to make (like as I start to run out of copper chime sections!). However, one neat thing that I found is to look back over my old blog postings, or, more recently, to do a Google search of images, Coast Chimes. It has been about twenty years that I have been making wind chimes and suncatchers, and posting pictures on the internet, so any search leads to a trip down memory lane.

The other night I was lazily browsing through images on Google, and stumbled across some of the design posted above. I had almost forgotten about these! They were popular, and fun / challenging to make. So the next morning I could hardly wait to get down to my workshop and put one together. I happily had a suitable beach stone for the base, and the other materials were all at hand, too. So it was relatively quick and simple to assemble. Magic!

Now I just have to remember, the next time I go down to the beach, to keep my eyes open for more suitable beach stone base stones.

Wind Chime, New Design

Click on the picture to see it larger

New design!

Beach glass inspired wind chime with a large copper hoop.

For more information, visit Coast Chimes

Often new ideas are triggered by customers asking for something. A customer wanted my very large, heavy iron chimes with one piece of glass. I didn't like that idea very much, because first the look would have been unbalanced (bottom heavy), and second, even my thickest glass might have been challenged by the weight of those big chimes.

So I thought about it overnight, and in the morning I had a solution that pleased the customer, and me. I decided to make a large copper hoop. I put the glass in the hoop, and the hoop supported the weight of the chimes. This solved the weight problem, and also made for a much more balanced looking wind chime.

After I made the special order, I liked the look so much I decided to make another one. This time I put two nice pieces of glass inside the hoop, and used my copper chimes. Above, you can see the result. I like it. Be sure to click on the picture to see it much larger.

Suncatcher Chime Fancy, Inspiration

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Suncatcher Chime, beach glass inspired, cold forged

hammered copper diamond connectors. Three handcrafted copper chimes.

To learn more, or to purchase, visit the website by Click Here.

After all these years of making suncatchers, I still come up with new ideas. Having left over heavy copper sheeting from the patching I had to do on the hammered copper sink for the birdbath I made, it occurred to me that I could use this to make some neat new decoration on my suncatchers and wind chimes. Above, the results: the hammered cold forged copper diamonds between the glass pieces.

Inspiration is a funny thing. I find it has to come to me, that I can not go to it. It comes in a flash, from (as far as I can tell) nowhere. It seems most often to be triggered by materials: a piece of stone on the beach, a stick, a scrap of metal. Sometimes, it comes from a question someone asked (i.e, 'can you make a birdbath?'). Where ever, and what ever, I feel grateful that I do get ideas, and that often those ideas do seem to work out.

Internet (customer) Appreciation

Pretty? I had forgotten all about this mixed-media style kaleidoscope wind chime until a customer asked about them. Thanks to the internet, customers, viewers, other artists are able to easily drop a note, a comment~ this is a huge source of inspiration and motivation. To learn more about this wind chime, or to buy it, why not visit my website?

I feel an often overlooked advantage to selling one's art on the internet is direct contact with people. When you place your work in a store or gallery, you drop it off and (with luck) later get a check in the mail. You have no inkling of who has seen the work, who bought it, what people said. You don't know if ten people saw it or a thousand, and you don't get any idea of what people said and felt. But, depending on which site(s) you choose, using the internet you can receive feedback within minutes from potential customers, and other artists or craft people.

First, using counters and other statistical gathering tools, you know how many people are seeing your work, and even where and when they are looking, and for how long they look and read. If you have only a few visits a day, you know you need to figure out better ways to get your work 'out there.' If you have hundreds or thousands of visitors, and no one buys, you know you may have a problem with the work itself, or with the price. Either way, this is valuable information you never get from dropping things off at a store, where your work may not be displayed well, or perhaps the store is just not a busy place.

Second, and even better, selling on the internet brings comments, suggestions, ideas: Inspiration. Some of my very best ideas have sprung from a comment or question. How valuable is that? Extremely, and, once again, you just don't get that through a store.

Finally, and perhaps sweetest of all, are all the people who take the time to simply email and compliment your work. What a pleasure to wake and, with the first cup of morning coffee, read several emails from people who simply had to write and say how they love what you have done, how one day they hope to own something, how something impressed them so much. This past Winter, many a cold, wet, dreary morning has been brightened for me by such emails. You don't get that by dropping your work off at store.

So internet appreciation ~ Yes!