Upcycled Jello Mold Fishing Lure Wind Chime

The main components for this wind chime are, of course, the fish jello mold; fishing leaders; vintage fishing lures; and metal bottle openers.

I grew up in a fishing family and I fished a lot when I was young. All these lures are from those days, way back in the 1970s.

I haven’t fished in decades. Actually, I haven’t even opened my tackle box in years so it was fun to see what was in there.

I wasn’t sure what lures I would end up using so I just grabbed a bunch that I thought would work. Some hooks were already missing, and I removed the rest.

Supplies needed for this fishing lure wind chime

• Vintage copper fish jello mold
• vintage fishing lures
• fishing leaders
• fishing swivels
• 1/2″ split rings
• snap clips
• key ring
• metal bottle openers
• drill and 1/16″ metal drill bit

To create this fishing lure wind chime the first thing I needed to do was drill the two main hanger holes into the top of the jello mold. I did this by lining up the tail and head along a line on my cutting pad and measuring down the same length. This way I had a better chance of the fish hanging right.

Once I had the holes marked with a black marker I drilled my holes using a 1/16″ metal drill bit.

SAFETY TIP: When drilling into metal always, always, always wear safety glasses to protect your eyes.

I used a rasp to get rid of any sharp edges.

Then I added my fishing leaders into the two holes.

After attaching the two fishing leaders onto a key ring I hung my fish up to check it out. I was pretty happy with how it was hanging.

I did the exact same thing to the bottom of the fish, except here I created seven somewhat evenly spaced holes.

To create the fishing lure chimes I’m using some fishing swivels, some snap clips, and some split rings.

I started playing with the lures in different combos using the swivels at the top, which will go into the jello mold holes, and the split rings to add the second row of lures.

I changed it up in a way that I liked and then attached the swivels through the holes.

The snap clips were then used to attach the bottle openers to split rings on the bottom row of lures.

I have a large stash of bottle openers that I've been collection from thrift stores and garage sales for years, because I knew one day I would use them in wind chimes.

To dress up the top of the wind chime I added a spinner lure between the hanging leaders and a red and white plastic bobber on the end just for fun.

And here’s my finished upcycled jello mold fishing lure wind chime. This is the back, so I think it looks good from either side.

And here’s the front. This was such a fun one-of-a-kind project, and I’m super happy with how it turned out. I love creating unique wind chimes by upcycling unexpected things.

All these lures were actually used to fish, and they have the age and wear to prove it. But they’re still very cool, and I’m happy to give them a new life by getting them out of the tackle box and onto a wind chime.

Because I had most everything in my stashes, it's hard for me to figure out exactly how much it cost to create. For me the cost was mostly for my time. I've put it down as $5, but if you had to start collecting everything from scratch it would be rather pricey.

My hope is that this project will inspire you to look at what you can create with what you already have in your own stashes.

You can find more wind chime projects on my blog, Color Me Thrifty, here.