Natural Decor: Making Chimes with Gourds

• Clean out the gourd top with either a chisel or a table knife, and sand the edges and other inner areas that you can reach.

• Use your woodcarving knife with the U-veiner blade to cut small holes from which to hang the chimes around the circumference of the open bottom. Make the holes fairly close together, approximately one-half inch apart.

• Decorate your chime after you make the holes.

• When you complete the decorating, use hollowed-out sticks of either bamboo or wood, or even seashells, to create the individual chimes. Different lengths and thicknesses of sticks and bamboo create different tones and sounds.

• Thread a piece of leather lace through the bamboo.

• Tie a knot at the end of the lace at the bottom of the bamboo piece.

• Thread the other end of the lace, from the inside of the gourd, through one of the holes you cut into the gourd. Ensure that the end of the lace is on the outside of the gourd.

• Tie a double knot at the end of the lace.

• Push the knot, now on the outside of the gourd, down into the hole until it fits snugly within the hole. Push the knot in until it is flush with the gourd. You might need to slightly enlarge the hole that you cut in order to fit in the larger knot. You can easily widen the hole with a drill, a small screwdriver, a pair of closed scissors. Attaching the bamboo in this way allows it to hang and swing freely.

• Repeat the above steps until each hole has a bamboo piece hanging from it. Check the length at which the sticks you attach to the gourd hang to ensure that they will connect with each other when they swing.

• Cut a small hole into the gourd at a point from which the chime will hang as it needs to. If it is positioned correctly, you can often tie a hanging loop directly to the gourd's stem.

• Make a hanging loop out of leather lace and working from the outside, push the knot into the hole. For a tight fit, you might want to use a double knot.

Hang your chimes near a window, on a porch, in any breezy corner that affords you the pleasant tinkling and clinking of your own homespun decoration.