DIY: Spring-Inspired Garden Pinwheel and Wind Chime Using Upcycled Chick-Fil-A Soup Container

I always love a good challenge, especially when it's a dare on my creativity. I sort of thrive on it. Now, I openly admit that because I have a track record of going beyond the norm when it comes to upcycling certain items. One example is when I turned used fabric sheets into something beautiful - that's what I say anyway since it's my work. You can see this beautiful thing I talk about here. You're welcome. 

Now Chick-Fil-A have been coming up with good challenges like the cellphone coop, which I did here. Right now, the challenge is to upcycle their soup container. I know that as soon as I saw the container, my brain went overdrive with ideas. There were simple, straight-forward, easy-to-make ideas I toyed with but I said, "nah"... I want something unique. Something that's appropriate for the upcoming Spring season.

And that's when I came up with the Pinwheel and the Wind chime...

Here's a little backstory that inspired me to settle on these ideas if you don't mind me telling. It will be short and a tad sweet, I promise!

Pinwheel - When I was growing up in the Philippines, at the onset of every Summer season, we, children of the tropical sun, have an unofficial tradition of making pinwheels to welcome the season. A season where cool breezes and Summer winds fill our days. Now, our pinwheels, we usually made them out of upcycled plastic jugs, old newspapers or anything we can get our hands on that's totally recyclable, light and easy to cut - including soda cans - to our parents disapproval! Think sharp edges. Nonetheless, making this pinwheel was a tribute to those childhood Summer days of mine.

Wind Chime - My husband have a deep fascination with wind chimes, which obviously was passed on to me - being married for 13 years will do that to you. We have really huge ones and teeny tiny ones in our armada of wind chimes. Yes, we have 'em, seen 'em all. Unfortunately, we never got the chance to hang any of our wind chimes when we moved to this new house. Even our big, ol' mean wind chime have seen better days and we never got around to fixing it yet again for the nth time. If you ask me, our wind chimes has long retired. But, I totally believe that this wind chime I created is a cute substitute, bar none!

With all that said, I'm proud to show you my masterpiece at work.

And here's a brief instruction on how I did it. It's really easy. I used materials that were readily available.

Materials needed:
Acrylic Paints - your choice of colors
Paint brush
Watercolor brush
scissor
nail
mini wind chime from dollar store
wooden chopstick or a strip of thick wood
bamboo stick or thick wood stick
twine
Straw

Instructions:
My pinwheel is inspired by the Daffodils that have already sprung on my front yard. I took their color scheme and applied that to my pinwheel to make it blend in with the landscape.

• I started by tracing the outline of the "petals" on the transparent lid with a highlighter. I didn't want a permanent line on the plastic so I opted out of using a sharpie. I chose the corners with tabs for my main petals. The "petals" in between became my secondary wheels which I folded inwards after cutting them.
• Next, I painted the petals. Main petals, yellow and secondary, orange. Center, red. After it dried, I folded the petals from bottom to top to create a crease resembling the angle of a fan blade. This step is crucial for making the pinwheel turn with the wind.
• Cut two small strips from the red straw, cross-wise. Punch first strip through nail, followed by lid on it's center, then second strip. Bring them close together. 
• Hammer nail down on top of chopstick as close to the lid. Not tight but snug enough to give it freedom of movement. 
• Attach chopstick to bamboo stick with a twine to form a t-shape. There should be at least 2 inches distance between from front of lid to point of attachment on bamboo stick. Cut the extra stick from chopstick at the back end if you desire. 
• Stick it on the ground and watch your pinwheel dance with the wind. 

The wind chime is the easiest. All I needed to do was hand paint the flowers and leaves using the watercolor brush around the container using the same color scheme. I also painted the edges, poked a hole on the center, then I creatively attached the wind chime I disassembled to incorporate the container and create a seamless look. That's it!

Do you like these projects? Let us know if you decided to make them. For more DIY ideas on how to upcycle this soup container, make sure to follow hashtag #ChickFilAMomsDIY


Disclaimer: This is not a paid post but part of the Chick-Fil-A mom program where I'm a member.