Playing with Beach Glass & Wire Wrapping

After having dinner last night at Spiro’s Sports Bar & Grille (E. Prater in Sparks) ~ love their spanakopita! ~ and watering the new part of the front yard, I organized all of my wires and tools. Decided I will be stopping by Lowes after work to pick up a few container odds and ends.

I played with some of the cheap wire I bought at a yard sale ~ just wanted to diddle around with some designs. Came up with this for two pieces of glass that I bought off of ebay…the ones with rims.

I’m going to try to drill a hole in the middle of the green one to pass the wire through the front towards the back and then bring up the wire to the top as a bail. Not sure about the brown one…but thinking of drilling a hole in the top of that one.

That’s about as far as I got ~ Biggest Loser came on and I love that show. YEAH ALI! A girl finally is THE BIGGEST LOSER! Kelly looked pretty dang good too…and I wrote her off long ago. Am very proud of her! Glad Bernie came back and beat all the guys too! He’s such a sweetie.

Wind, Snow, Beach Glass and Monsterslayer ~ all in one day

The Truckee Meadows was wind blown yesterday and last night…checked the weeping cherry and the lilac bush, both were still standing uprightl! Had my fingers crossed as we had 40 mph winds with gusts up to 84 mph! Sheesh. And to top off the bloody bad weather ~ this morning when I looked out the window here at work ~ what do I see?! SNOW! It was snowing! It’s cool and cloudy out there now with a breeze…went from 81 degrees on Sunday to 43 degrees today. And we’re having a cluster of wee earthquakes (in the 3’s)…seems like the epicenter is near Verdi. Just felt one about 2:33 pm…was more this morning too.

The mail was sweet to me though! Popped into the post office at lunch today and found my order from Monsterslayer and Sea of Glass sitting there waiting for me ~ YEAH!

From MONSTERSLAYER I received a box of silver and copper wire and wire wrap pliers…I wanted to try out the silver square wire and I needed a couple of different gauges of copper. They are pretty dang fast with their orders! Placed an order in the mid-morning and that puppy was already being picked and out the door that afternoon. Very impressed with them.

SEA OF GLASS is a shop on Etsy run by Laura. I bought some green and brown sea glass that was collected in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Really nice medium size peices ~ I’ve gotten some beach glass from other folks…trying to find the right size. Sometimes you can’t really gauge it off of the pictures. Am very happy with this transaction.

These are Laura’s pictures…not mine (I’m just hosting them). I haven’t gotten them home yet to take pictures.

I think tonight I’ll organize all of my tools, wire, glass, beads and other supplies…we’re going to have crappy weather the rest of the week through the weekend so it looks like I’ll be doing inside stuffus instead of yard work. G&G Nursery won’t have Old English Roses in for another few weeks…that gives me time to do other things. Like learning to braid/knot hemp….and drill holes in glass!

Beach Glass ~ Time to make Jewelery after Buying & Bartering

I used to live near the ocean when I was a kid ~ collected all sorts of treasures when I walked the beaches. But for the life of me, I can not place my box of sea glass, rocks and shells. I found a few of my rocks ~ but no glass.

So I’ve been buying a few auctions off of ebay and etsy.

The ones from etsy are too small to make pendants out of them…and I’m not sure I can even drill holes in them for earrings. Will have to ponder on those for a while longer. They are very beautiful pieces, just sooooo tiny. For now they are in a crockery bowl from my Grandma’s house next to my bed so I can play with them before I go to sleep. LOL!

Here is the bowl with all of the beach glass in it ~ both Etsy’s and the Ebay finds ~ the ones I found on ebay are larger and will work perfectly for what I have in mind.

Are those cool or what?! I like the rims on them…great for wire wrapping. I’ll be making necklaces for my sister, mom, niece and myself from them. Maybe even for my 5 year old nephew…with braided hemp, perhaps!

I’m in trade with a wonderful jewelery artist on etsy ~ SafariSister Jewelry + Findings + Objects ~ am trading my soaps for some of her findings, a necklace for myself and a pair of earrings for a present (not sure who will get them!). I’m going to use some of Jacky’s earwire findings with the beach glass. Can’t wait to get them!

I have to figure out how to drill holes through the glass too. From what I’ve read up on it…you should drill the glass under water. Hmmmm…wonder if they teach that in the Under Water Basket Weaving class?! Guess I’ll just take a bowl out to the shed, put a scrap of wood in the bottom of it and then put the glass on top of that…fill it with enough water to cover the top of the glass and start to drill. Luckily we have a cordless drill…I can just see me electrocuting myself.

So…in the near future I’ll drilling holes in glass, wrapping wire around said glass, learning how to braid hemp and whatever else I can think of.