Antique Silverware & Keys Windchime

About a year ago my mom decided she wanted a set of wind chimes made from old silverware.  She picked up some flatware along with various trays and silver portions of old servingware to use as bases, and mailed me a whole box of stuff.  She asked my dad to drill holes in the flatware, but didn't think to have him make some in the bases.  To be honest, I wanted nothing to do with making these wind chimes!  So the items sat around for the last 18 months.  But with Mother's Day looming this year, I decided I really should get around to making them, if only to get the stuff out of my house.  There was a great deal of trial and error, and some cursing.  Ok, a lot of cursing.  But I finally managed to get something together that would be well balanced and hang straight. 

I started by matching the silverware in terms of length, shape, and weight.  While she sent about 20 pieces, only 8 could be well matched into pairs, so there are 4 pieces of flatware on each side, in ascending order of length.  To give the strands added length, they are hanging from links of Czech glass and crystal beads.  I reversed the order of the flatware on the other side, so both sides would be equally weighted.  Once I got them all on there, and evenly spaced apart, I felt like there was too much dead space between them, so I dug through my stash until I found a bag of antique keys.  Then of course I had to make more strands of beads to hang them from, and added the keys in between the flatware.  Each bead is separated by lengths of chain made from individual jump rings and oval rings, all handmade.  All in all it was about 80 crystal beads placed on headpins. 

While I wanted to throw it out the window while I was making it, in the end I'm very happy with how it came out.  And most importantly, my mom loves it.  She has it hanging outside her kitchen/dining room window, so she can hear it while they eat.