While waiting to see the Doctor the other day, I sat in the waiting room pretending to read my magazine, while I eyed the other patients. As I was flicking through the pages of a National Geographic however, an article caught my eye. It was basically about the decreasing amounts of Sea Glass in our oceans due to everything that was once made of glass, now being made with plastic.
In a nutshell, Sea (or beach) Glass is formed when bits of broken glass are rounded and smoothed by the tumbling action of the waves and sand. The longer the glass lies in the ocean’s depths, the smoother and more desirable it becomes. The colorful jewels are then washed up on the shore and wait to be discovered.
I suppose I never really gave much thought to Sea Glass and it never occurred to me as to there being varying degrees of rarity. Clear Sea Glass is the most common, along with green and brown, while red is apparently extremely rare.
Many artists have taken to using Sea Glass as unique gems in their jewelry creations. The prices for these gorgeous and totally unique pieces can skyrocket into the hundreds of dollars depending on the rarity of the glass used. The stunning earrings featured above were created by West Coast Sea Glass, and they feature the ever elusive red glass. Some other artists who create jewlery from Sea Glass are Beach Glass Memories, Sea Find Designs and my favourite, Relish (featured below), which is run by sisters Jennifer and Terri who create beautiful jewelry in sterling silver and 14k gold, using pieces of genuine found Lake Erie beach glass.
I know I am now going to keep an extra eye out next time I’m at the beach. Has anyone found any Sea Glass that they have kept or has made into something special? Does anyone have any red Sea Glass?
Hi Sea Glass Lovers! Thanks for posting my jewelry on your blog. I have an entire set of pages on my website dedicated to the intrigue of rare, red sea glass here: http://www.westcoastseaglass.net/rare_red.html
In fact, the National Geographic article that you read in the Dr’s office was from an interview with me. I think there’s even a photo of that red marble from the magazine somewhere on my website.
Take care, Mary Beth
Thank you for writting this article and drawing attention to what has been a life long passion of mine. I have been collecting sea glass for decades and four years ago decided to turn these gems into jewelry. Sea glass is beautiful and each piece is unique and has story to tell. It is a part of history with the different types of glass that has been produced throughout the centuries. Jewelry quality sea glass has been the ocean for a very, very long time in order to have achieved the smooth, frosty appearance that it has. To view a vast selection of rare sea glass jewelry and for information on sea glass identification please visit http://www.jewelrybydaniellerenee.com/
Great article, we also have 2 sites with one more to come dedicated to sea glass lovers around the world.
http://www.bytheseajewelry.com
http://seaglasslovers.ning.com/
and coming in 2009 Seaglasslovers.com
Hi I recently found a bottle bottom searching for sea glass, Labelled ” COOPER AND WOOD PORTOBELLO” I believe its from 1854-1865 Is this of any value? Maybe someone will want but I don’t know where to start, Please help 🙂
http://www.bytheseajewelry.com
Hi Adelle,
How interesting and how beautiful are the photos.
Nice article and very nice blog.
Bye,
Lúcia
Hi,
Aren’t those red sea glass earrings with pearls gorgeous? Beautiful job Mary Beth. I would like to invite all of you that are passionate about sea glass to join the original
Sea Glass Artists & Sea Glass Collectors
http://seaglassartists.ning.com/
thanks,
Lisl Armstrong
Hi Adelle,
I live on the far south coast of NSW and have a couple of beaches close by that abound in seaglass. I started off making some earrings as a memento for someone who was leaving the town and now its grown! It wasn’t until sometime later that I realised my dad had sent me some jewellery from Relish and that my subconscious must have picked up on the idea!!
I believe I’m the first Australian seaglass gift and jewellery creator with an online presence but I could be wrong and hope others will showcase their talents and finds.
Best wishes,
Jody
Hi Jody,
I live in Penrith, but we have van at North Durras and spend quite a bit of time at Batemans Bay. How much further south are you?
Where do you like to go to indulge in this highly addictive pastime??
Glad to meet someone else from Australia!!!
Best wishes,
Virginia
I joined the seaglassartists website on Ning….waiting to be approved of course! I want to know more about seaglass and where I can find some?
Hi,
I’m from Tassie and just started collecting sea glass. Thinking back, it’s always been on the beaches I played and walked on as a child, but until now never realised its beauty or worth as a craft medium.
I’m self taught and I guess it shows, but I love wire wrapping and have some more ideas of how to incorporate sea glass into chimes, sun catchers and other things.
I’ve just joined seaglasslovers website. An awesome site with friendly members.
Cheers
Deb
Fascinating that human destruction ~ littering ~ has been naturally reshaped into something beautiful…
What a great article! Sea glass is starting to get lots of attention now that it is becoming harder and harder to find! Growing up on the east coast it is something that has been in my life since I was a little girl. I work with sea glass full time as a sea glass jewelry artist. I have information about color rarity and sea glass history along with a huge selection of jewelry on my site!
How fun! I have loved sea glass since I was a child growing up in San Francisco. I recently started crafting jewelry, primarily pendants and rings for my daughters. It’s so fun and I love making and sharing sea glass memories with my kids. I will definately check out the links
! If you’re in Cali, check out the National Sea Glass Festival this November http://seaglassassociation.org/SeaGlassFestival.php
Well Seaglasslovers on the Ning network will soon be celebrating it’s 1st Birthday on November 20th. Though we were not the “original” Ning sea glass site, we are now the LARGEST and MOST ACTIVE sea glass community site in the world.
On our Birthday we will be nearing 3000 members in over 44 countries…there are over 11,100 photos, tons of slide shows, hundreds of forum discussions, craft and display ideas, locations of beaches to find sea glass and MUCH MORE! Monthly contest with prizes.
We now have 2 SGL 2010 calendars and a bunch of fun t-shirts and sea glass loving products that help keep our site Non Commercial and ad free!
Loving the glass and the expressions that you have about the discovery of glass – I was hooked about 2 yrs ago and have been hunting since then – love the beach, sand, water, sun and of course if I should come upon a piece of sea glass or pottery – some of it is displayed in our home and other pieces are wrapped for jewelry. It is an addiction! And you meet the nicest people with the same common love of the “hunt”.
I collect and supply some of the nicest sea glass in the world from the famous north east coast of England, so why not pay me a visit on Etsy.com and see what I have to offer.
I just started collecting Sea Glass this summer after having a heart attack. I walk on the beach twice a day near my house and started out a cleaning the glass off the beach and soon became a collector after looking it up on the Internet. The beach i go to mostly is not a huge beach but is a bay beach and is a hidden GEM in the area of collecting sea glass. My girlfriend and I have had a great summer collecting rare colors of sea glass on our local beach. What a great summer its been.
Great article 🙂 I live in the southwest of France and love beach- combing … aka treasure hunting – for pieces for my sea glass jewelry Teal is my favorite.
Hi there adelle, I was wondering ifnyounknownof any good sea glass beaches in Tasmania.I currently work with resin but desperately want to expand my creativity to sea glass! any suggestions would be appreciates
I have been to a great beach somewhere near Hobart, from memory around South Arm or Seven Mile Beach.. ?????
not sure but will be trying to find out because I am very interested in doing some jewellery and mosaics.
I remember we used to call it Secret Beach… and yep… I guess people want to keep it a bit secret.
I remember driving down to a beach near by and then doing a bit of a walk around some rocks and there was this little pebbled beach that apparently used to be used as a dump site for crockery.
I’ll keep researching it and let you know if I find out
coud you let me know if you find it.
cheers
David
Hi Adelle!
I’ve been searching for information on our beaches here in Australia, especially the South Coast of NSW. Help anyone??
I think I was lucky to find this site, as almost all I’ve found so far are US sites. [They’re great sites for information, but a bit far for a weekend away!]
I’ll keep this one on my Favourites list. Sorry – don’t have anything of interest to post, I’m a newcomer to this – my eyes have only recently been opened. Like Debbie [above] says, it’s something that always seemed to be there!
Good luck hunting everyone.
Virginia
I’m originally from Connecticut and when I return, I always go collect more beach glass. I have a glass bowl filled with it. Love the picture.
One of my favorite aspects of sea glass is how different, and how same it came be from region to region all over the world. Some of the typical green, browns and white I find on the east coast of the US are found in Scotland, but then there are the amazing English multis only found on the north east coast of England.
I have started creating sea glass jewelry using sea glass from many areas around the world.