When hunting the beach for beautiful shells to put in your
pocket, look a bit closer and you'll find something a bit more
extraordinary. Katie from Harlech tells us more...
I've been collecting sea glass from my local beach in
Harlech for about a year; but only recently have I decided
to make use of these magical formations and make
necklaces.
Luckily I've had the help of my mother, who walks her dog daily
on Harlech beach, to help my collection grow more quickly.
Amazingly one day this summer I discovered a
bonanza of seas glass across Porthdinllaen beach in Nefyn!
With the amount of stoney beaches in North Wales to comb
through, I think it would be impossible to not find these
treasures. They'll catch your eye if you come across an
unusually large piece and more often that not one would
just assume it's a green piece of plastic, or a white stone, but
you may have just stood on a little piece of sea glass with
a wondrous background story!
Luckily a friend of mine makes jewellery and crafts
out of other objects, and kindly offered to help me begin.
Most of the necklaces are wrapped tightly in gold, rose gold or
silver plated wire and then attached to a chain. I then
decided to drill into some of the glass with curious markings. The
dazzling thing about drilling the glass means you can
really notice how wonderful some of these things
are.
I believe what makes mine different from the other sea
glass jewellery available in the UK, is that I like to use
them just as I found them - in their original form. You
can sand them down to make a
perfect ovals to attach to a necklace but, I
think, being able to use them in their natural
form - to see numbers, writing or patterns on
the original object make mine unique. If you're lucky you
can discover pieces with the ridges from the base on the
bottle on them still, or the amount of liquid the bottle held!
These bizarre pieces begin as normal broken glass
that are persistently tumbled and ground until the sharp edges are
smoothed and rounded, before ending up on shores across the
world. It's easy to spot the copious green sea glass
lying amongst grey and white pebbles and shells, but for me it's
all about finding blue sea glass. This is
my favorite colour to use as I think it goes
with gold wire so beautifully, and the fact that it's so rare makes
it so much more exciting!
My necklaces are currently for sale in the Llew
Glas Delicatessen in Harlech, Pieces
for Places in Barmouth and soon to be in the Menai
Holiday Cottages offices on Anglesey. I also have a Facebook
page, She Sells Sea Glass from the Sea Shore, and am hoping to make
a website this autumn. I think the magic behind them is the
mystery of where these fragments started their journey. You
never know, that piece of sea glass you've just picked
up could have come from Captain Blackbeard's last
bottle of rum!