Rain chain

Ever since we moved here (almost a year ago now!) I have admired our neighbor's "rain chain" hanging on their balcony. It is a chain of rocks and chunks of glass tied together with copper wire. I knew we could make it, but it took us until now to get around to it (maybe it's a nesting project :) So last weekend we went to work and made our own! Carol was kind enough to give us some pieces of glass (they were continually out of it online-ironically a place not far from where we lived in KY) and we collected the rocks off our beach. We had both turquoise and amber glass so made 2 different chains.

I'm fortunate that Grant is such a crafty guy. First he ground some notches in the top and bottom of the rocks so the wire would stay put.

Then we laid out the rocks and glass and decided which rock colors, sizes, shapes, etc we wanted in each chain. We made a mess of our living room for the weekend working on craft projects! I was also sewing...it got to be a bit much but we're nice and clean again now :)

We decided we wanted the rocks to look wet (so much shinier) so we clear coated them...we'll see if it stays on but they look good for now!

And then we went to work bending the wire and creating the chain. Grant said it was kind of like bending ortho wire, only WAY thicker and harder, but still the same idea :) I'm lucky he's got crazy crafting skills!

The beginning of the first chain...

And the yellow one...

And here is the finished product! I LOVE IT! Even though we'll only be here a few more months, I'm glad we finally finished it and got it up. Makes me happy every time I like at it and the colors go perfectly with all our outdoor stuff on the patio!

We are slowly finishing all the projects we want done by the time baby arrives. Only 5 more weeks til he's due!