Project 9: Sea Glass Necklaces

My love of sea glass went from 0 to 60 in about two seconds. Prior to summer of 2017, I didn’t even know that sea glass existed and now finding glass at the beach has become an obsession. We went to Lake Michigan for a family reunion and my husband said that we needed to try to find one piece of sea glass for his mom. Once he explained what this mysterious glass was and we found 1 piece, I became unstoppable on my daily morning and nightly sea glass searches which sometimes lasted 2 hours. After this trip, thanks to some coaching, I learned how to wrap the pieces of sea glass to create jewelry!

Pro tip: as I learned during my search for sea glass on the beach, there is “legit” sea glass which is no longer sharp and is frosted/opaque. And then there is random glass you find on the beach which is apparently not sea glass. Check “the google” to see the difference.

Side note: if you want to do this project and can’t get to the beach, you can buy sea glass. It’s just less fun.

Quick project summary: To make the sea glass necklaces, I purchased the following at Michaels: jewelry pliers, wire cutter, jewelry wire (I liked the double braided kind because I thought it was prettier), necklace chains, and lollipop sticks. I started by selecting the best pieces of glass for necklaces – think shapes that look like your typical pendant.

From there, I followed this wrapping technique (and I used a lollipop stick instead of a pencil for a slightly smaller loop at the top of each pendant)! Over time, I experimented with different styles of wrapping and found that the key was to make sure the pendant was wrapped on both sides and the bottom so the glass did not slip out of the wrapping over time. Once the glass was wrapped, I just slipped it onto the chains from Michaels and voila!

Things I loved about this project: Searching for sea glass is the best – it adds an extra fun element to walking on the beach and if you’re like me and my husband, you can also make it competitive, too (this is how you end up walking the beach for two hours attempting to see who can find the most or the last piece of glass). Additionally, the pendants are really fun to wear – definitely a conversation topic and I love that each one has a story. Of course, you can also gift these and I personally think they are much cooler than your typical souvenir from a trip.

Another unique element about sea glass searching is that, much like knitting, there is actually a little sea glass searching community. Once on the beach in Virginia, while looking for glass, I met a woman who always gifts a piece of sea glass to each new person she meets. It was so fun to trade glass with her!

Once you’ve made necklaces, there are tons of other great things to do with sea glass. You can make sea glass mobiles, sea glass art, etc. We actually got a clear glass lamp and are filling it with sea glass and I love the tradition of adding to it after each trip.

What I would do differently: I would definitely expand to earrings and other more complex jewelry. I only made necklaces because earrings or even bracelets seemed a bit more complex to me. Maybe this summer, I’ll get the guts to do some earrings! Additionally, I used some plain wire and some braided wire for the necklaces – the braided wire looks much prettier in my humble opinion.

Things I also enjoyed while doing this project:

-Drinking rose

-Hanging with my fabulous sea glass coaches

-Learning about the different colors of sea glass. which are more rare (purple/red!), and what types of glass the sea glass may have originated from

-Reading this book about sea glass