Jean & Ted Chalfant- Founders

In 1970 Jean & Ted solved the riddle for making awesome glass bottle chimes.  Their first chimes were Michelob beer bottles melted whole and hung of a cut down tree branch.  Over the years we've turned just about every type of bottle under the sun into a wind chime- perfume bottles, baby food jars, soda bottles, vanilla bottles, gallon jug necks, mini liquor bottles, mason jars, and of course wine bottles.  Some were more successful than others.  We like to believe that 50 years in we've finally perfected the art of glass bottle chimes (but there's probably new solutions on the road ahead).  Jean and Ted raised their three daughters doing art shows (we were those kids you'd see roaming shows with no parent in sight, or tucked under tables thinking they're invisible).  Donna would muck out the pony ride booth for free pony rides, and sell pages from her coloring book to get ice cream money.  My parents tethered me to our 30 pound toolbox when I was learning to walk, only to have me drag it with me as I tried to get to a dripping faucet.  When I was five they set me up my own tiny table in our booth where I'd sell little gemstone necklaces I made for a dollar.  So this business kinda runs in our blood.  Fast forward to 2010, we opened the door to wholesale and the whole game changed!  Our work is now featured in over 500 galleries across the US (we're in all 50 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico).

We're just a small team of five.  Ted runs our wood shop and helps Donna with the kilns.  Donna is in charge of cutting and firing all our circles.  She fires 600 circles a day to keep up with demand!  She also runs the shipping department.  Jean is in charge of sea glass chimes and pitches in to help make other chimes.  She can also be found on the phone.  Maura, my wife, does a little bit of everything.  She hangs about 80% of our chimes, layouts circles (prep for hanging them), grinds the slag off all the metal tops, and does lots of other meticulous prep work.  So what do I do?  Well, I do the fun tasks like web design, catalog design, and anything else that's in the marketing family.  My other fun job is running our PlasmaCam (it's an automated metal cutting torch system that's where all those metal tops come from), which is sometimes an easy job, and sometimes a nightmare.  But you'll mostly know me as the person who answered your email.  Somehow we all work together everyday to get your order out!  

 

If you have a question, please give us a call or drop us an email!  We make every chime start to finish, and take a lot of pride in making our chimes out of the best materials. The string on them will last at least 10 years (maybe more, but we’ve tested it for that long).  The chain is stainless steel, and made in the USA.  Our tops are 16 gauge steel, that are powder coated by a shop in the next town over.

 

Roxy Chalfant (that's me!) working hard designing new ad materials!

Donna Guest getting your wind chimes ready to ship out!

Maura Cartwright hanging around!