When I'm Not Sewing - SEAGLASS (making jewelry)

 A girl can't sew ALL the time.  Right now, this is my latest jam - making jewelry from seaglass I collected in France and England.  I can loosely connect it to the theme of this blog because it is about repurposing - old glass discarded and tumbled in the sea for decades washes up on the beach where it is picked up and turned into wearable art.

In Sept 2019 I collected a handful of these large pieces of seaglass, some of them still a little rough, 

on the coast of Brittany

In Aug 2022, I collected these small, smooth "well done" nuggets at Seaham, on the NE coast of England

(All the glass in my collection was picked up in two afternoons - one in France, one in England)

These pieces of seaglass look like jewels to me, so of course I wanted to make them into jewelry although that is something I've never done before.  But why not?  I might as well give it a try!

First of all, though, I did have a few pieces professionally set into jewelry.  I had a gold ring I was given 40 years ago and the freshwater pearl was crumbled so I had it replaced with a tiny piece of seaglass.  

And I had a couple of pair of earrings custom made.

Amazing that you can find perfectly matched sets from seaglass you randomly pick up on the beach!

Then I stocked up on basic jewelry making supplies, got some diamond tips for the Dremel (to drill holes in the glass for the earrings and pendants) and got to work. Wire wrapping is an easy technique although it takes a little practice. I used the cheap stuff for most of this, because I'm just learning how to do it.

This ring turned out the best, I made it with sterling silver wire - after I made a couple of practice rings.  

I LOVE THIS RING!

Here are a couple more experiments 

This was made with a beautiful multi-colored piece of glass

Bright green nugget from England

Big piece is from France, the nuggets from England, but they match pretty well

 

These are all from England

These are all from France

The blue in the middle is from England, the other two from France

Both of these from England - the yellow was very rare, and I didn't have another to match it, but it was the same size and shape as this green one, so I made a mismatched pair.

Once I got the hang of drilling the glass (there are some tricks to this) I got hooked and couldn't stop.  And I am already thinking of where I will go to hunt my next batch of seaglass...