Jewel of the Tides

Discover nature's vanishing gems.
Natural seaglass.

This is what has been keeping me occupied recently. Over the past 6 weeks or so I've become an almost professional beach-comber. After seeing someone collect some seaglass at a recent visit to the beach, out of curiosity I wanted to find out how old the pieces are, particuarly the really round and worn ones and was blown away with the fact that some pieces could have been made in the mid-1850's! I've found that red, orange and yellow seaglass is rare world wide. Black is rare everywhere except Australia and is probably our oldest glass, it is really a very, very dark olive green when held up to bright sunlight. Blue is common in other places but very rare in Australia. I've found 4 blue pieces and 1 red piece. The red is likely to have come from a boat light. I've also found out there are almost 800 shipwrecks off the South Australian coast.
Seaglass is disappearing. As pieces get worn down to nothing, or people collect them, or they become buried forever under deep piles of sand the glass is not being replaced as people are more wary of litter and plastic has taken over as the preferred container to hold liquids as opposed to glass. So seaglass really is nature's vanishing gem.

The more I read, the more interested I became in the different types of seaglass and I started collecting it. I found some sites that make some gorgeous jewellery with it. So since then I've also embarked on teaching myself how to make jewellery!
Here are my first creations. I've sourced some itty bitty bottles and have filled them with teeny tiny seaglass and I've experimented with wire wrapping.
I've also incorporated my scrapbooking too! As I've done some off the page items for my seaglass storage and my jewellery findings.
Life is still as fantastic as ever!