How to Make Wind Chimes From A Toy Xylophone

You'll make your wind chime using these metal bars.

Remove the back cover of the toy xylophone. You'll probably need a Philips head screwdriver to take it off. For your wind chimes you will only need the metal bars, but to get them, you need to remove the pegs that hold them in place and let them vibrate.

Use a screwdriver to break lose these pegs.

Use a flat head screwdriver to break the plastic holding the pegs in place.

Toy xylophone bars for wind chime

Remove the pegs which hold the metal bars in place.

Spacers keep the fishing line from tangling

Untwist the top of your metal coat hanger and thread the spacers onto the wire. Since my xylophone was part of a toy piano, I recycled the piano keys to use as spacers. However, any large beads will work fine. The main thing is that you don't want the fishing line holding the xylophone bars to tangle.

Bend the coat hanger into a circle so that the spacers form a loose circle. Leave about an inch and a half extra of unbeaded wire at each end of the circle (so that you can fold it over) and cut the excess wire.

Coat hanger ends hooked together

Use pliers to fold back one end of the wire in a loop. Insert the other end of the wire through the loop and fold it back so that the two loops are interconnected.

Cut eight pieces of fishing line measuring about three feet each. They need to be longer than the chimes will hang because you'll use the excess to form a loop for hanging them.

Tie the fishing line to one of the holes in a xylophone bar. Be sure to knot it several times.

Tie the fishing line between two of the spacers. Be sure to tie it so that you have about a foot of fishing line left above the coat hanger.

Wind chimes

Repeat steps 8 and 9 until each of the xylophone bars is attached to the coat hanger wire.

The fishing line pulled together for hanging

Take the excess fishing line and hold it in one hand so that the wind chimes are dangling. Use the other hand to gently pull the wire circle until it's level, then tie the lines together. Make sure there is several inches of fishing line above your first knot. Then make another two knots above the first one.

Wind chimes

Hang your wind chimes in a breezy spot and enjoy. Be sure to hang them from the middle knot so that if it slides, the next knot will prevent them from falling.