Sea/beach glass jewellery: an online tutorial

This tutorial by Ali Friedman is called Convertible Beach Glass Bezel and shows you how to solder silver bezel settings for pieces of beach glass, which may then be joined together to make a necklace.

See also my earlier posts about sea, beach and tumbled glass jewelry: three websites and a tutorial on tumbling bottle glass.

Inspired by the sea: three websites from Orkney

Sheila Fleet's jewellery is inspired by the sky and seascape around Orkney, and in the case of this collection by a photograph of a wave (http://www.sheilafleet.co.uk/NewWave1.asp). Wonderful shapes and enamel colours.

Shoreline by Emma Thomson With textures inspired by cockle and limpet shells. (http://www.aurora-jewellery.co.uk/shoreline.asp).

Machair range from Ola Gorie. Delightful designs inspired by the machair: the sandy meadows on the Scottish west coast. (http://olagorieshop.com/finder.html?rangename=Machair:price_start=1:id=cugTN6wc)

Tree ring design: another change!

In order to get a wider silver border around the felt circle, I have decided on another change to my tree ring design (seen previously in 1, 2, 3)

I squeezed one of the felt beads through the holes in my circle template, and found that it would go through a hole of diameter 3 mm smaller than its own diameter. So the new plan is to make a little silver cylinder with a hole of that size (or perhaps a little smaller to start with) in the top. The felt will be squeezed in once all the soldering and polishing is complete.

Winter beach collage

Photos for my Coast theme design project. I like the cold blue colours here, the shape of the breaking wave and the textural patterns of the shells. The photos were taken in February a few years ago at Gullane, East Lothian.

Completed. Silver ring with polymer clay cabochon

I finished the ring that I previously mentioned in this post. My ring and I then went off to do a location shoot at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden (North Yorkshire), and you can see the results above!

I made some mistakes while setting the cabochon, primarily by using a burnisher rather than a pusher for the first step. This led to a corrugated setting, and the end result is still a bit dented and uneven. However, I am still pleased with the result.

Orientation of fold-formed pendant relative to oval link chain

To help me decide on how to assemble the necklace, I took some photos of different arrangements of my fold-formed pendant and the first few oval links. I've set up an online poll so that people can vote for their favourite layout. The poll appears in the sidebar on the right of this blog, just below the introductory bit. Go on - cast a vote! The poll will be open until 4 March 2008.

Brief number 3: Design project, a learning journal

Patterns in the sand, Gullane, East Lothian

Brief number three is a project to be done outside college hours. Here's the start of the brief "You need to create a Learning Journal based on a theme ...".

My chosen theme is Coast

I've decided to organise my material in two parts. There will be thematic entries in this blog and I shall also build up a book of pictures and other material which, for copyright or other reasons, would be unsuitable for the blog.

Silver ring with polymer clay cabochon

I got slightly diverted from my tree ring design plans, when I came across this cabochon the other day. I made it myself from polymer clay a year or so ago. I usually prefer the clay polished, but not varnished. However this is an exception, as it is varnished, and I love it!
I have made a setting for it, and now just need to fix the setting to the ring. The thread in the picture is to help me get the cab out of the setting again. If this comes out well I shall be sorting through all the little collections of polymer clay beads I have around the house to find more forgotten treasures.

Easy oval links for a chain

I am starting to make a bespoke chain for my fold-formed pendant. The chain will have a few large oval links, and I have started to make these following the method on p110 of Elizabeth Olver's Jewellery Making Techniques Book

I was delighted to discover how easy this was, assuming access to the necessary tools, as I had been worried I'd have to pierce the ovals. In fact they are made using soldered jump rings. You then roll each ring in the rolling mill, and miraculously out comes a beautiful oval. I used 2 mm round wire wound on a 6 mm knitting needle to form my rings.

I chose to hammer the links so that they go well with the pendant, but they looked pretty good before hammering. I am now going to decide how best to link them together.

Tumbling bottle glass

This tutorial describes how I converted glass from a sherry bottle into pieces resembling sea or beach glass, to be used for jewellery making. The bottle was a blue Harveys Bristol Cream sherry bottle.

I used this rock tumbler, which I usually use for sanding polymer clay beads. (You'll find advice on that application, from Desiree McCrorey, here). The tumbler is sold as a child’s rock tumbler, and is predominantly made from plastic. Mine was purchased from the Science Museum Shop. Another, similar toy is here. For tumbling rocks the machine needs to run for several days, and I suspect that it really makes too much noise to be left on all night without disturbing the neighbours. Fortunately, less time is required for tumbling glass, this task can be achieved during waking hours.

The tumbler was supplied with several packets of abrasive grit for use with rocks. I used the coarsest grade for tumbling my bottle glass.

Here are the steps involved in the process:

1. Empty the bottle and rinse it out with water

2. Put on safety glasses and gloves (I used leather gardening gloves)

3. Wrap the bottle in a tea towel that you don't mind getting torn.

4. Take the wrapped bottle outdoors, together with a household hammer

5. Find a suitably hard surface, hold the bottle neck (still wearing gloves and eye protection) and use the hammer to smash the bottle inside the towel. I found that the edge of my concrete doorstep was a suitable surface, and that the hammer worked best when applied to the shoulder of the bottle. The hammer bounced off other parts of the bottle.

6. Check to see how large the fragments are. Hammer those that are too big, keeping them inside the towel. Some people suggest using tile snippers to form the pieces into the desired shape, but I did not manage to do this successfully.

7. Carefully transfer the fragments from the towel into a storage container.

8. Still wearing gloves, select several pieces for tumbling and weigh them. My load weighed about 150 g.

9. Put the glass in the barrel of the tumbler, add water to just cover the glass then add the abrasive. The maximum my tumbler can tumble at a time is 225 g, so as I had about 150 g I decided to use only half of the sachet of abrasive. Close the barrel tightly and start the tumbler.

10. Tumble for several hours, then check on progress. I tumbled for 10 hours, checked progress, than ran for 2 more hours (12 hours in total). Rinse and dry a piece of glass to be sure that you are assessing progress correctly.

11. When tumbling is completed to your satisfaction, empty the contents of the barrel into a colander held over a bucket, and rinse well. Dispose of the grit that is now in the bucket - but not into the drains! I added mine to a flower bed. Do not use the colander for food after this. Nor indeed the bucket.

12. Clean out the barrel thoroughly so that there is no danger of spoiling any items later tumbled in the barrel.

13. Make something pretty using your tumbled bottle glass!

Please do leave a comment about this tutorial. For example ask a question if these instructions need clarification, post a link if you make any tumbled bottle glass of your own, or add your own experiences with tumbling glass.