Make Bamboo Chimes

I came across a terrific post on michele made mewith instructions for making wood chimes from lengths of bamboo. I had just seen some reasonably priced bamboo at Pier One that was stained with a rust color, and thought that I had found the perfect end-of-the-year project to make with a class of Kindergarteners. I decided that it would work well as a collaboration that could be hung in the school playground. Michele's bamboo is painted with lovely, intricate designs. With the Kindergarteners I decided to apply textured designs such as bubble wrap. The children used sponge rollers to apply acrylic paint to the bubble wrap and then pressed the designs onto the bamboo.

My husband had cut the bamboo for me and drilled holes so that it could be hung using fishing line from a length of dowel that I had spray painted gold. It truly makes a magical sound and we plan on making one for our own backyard.