Wish Bells

Wish Bell

Lou asked about these there's a back story!

I watch Chinese, Japanese and Korean TV/Movies on YouTube.  I started because I was bored with everything else and they have some seriously gorgeous men.  I'm old, not dead!  I don't speak Chinese (of any variety), Japanese, or Korean so I must read subtitles.  It's really amazing what you can learn from shows you can't just listen to!  Like a little Chinese.  Anyway, I notice things about culture etc and I am fascinated by these little bells.  Not only do they hang these bells from trees but sometimes just the wish part is hung and sometimes on a board with pegs.  

As is often the case with my little projects I decided to try to make some using something I can't seem to throw into the recycling!

I have a couple of dozen of these glass jars, if the worst happened it would be okay.

After you take off the label and the leftover sticky you use a diamond drill bit and a spray bottle of water to drill a hole in the bottom.  This seems to take forever, I managed holes in 6 jars and only broke 3!

Then you make these:

I used pieces of paint stir sticks and drilled holes in both ends. Then I acquired big brass fish weights, ribbon, and embroidery floss.

Write your wish on the board with a sharpie-in English! Unless you speak some other language.  You should use that! Everything is strung together using ribbon with knots placed above and below the hole.

Then you make tassels-this was actually hard.

I made lots of mistakes on this first one but the next 5 should go better!

Perhaps the Chinese have a name for these but to me they are Wish Bells.