[Nfb-krafters-korner] What is Sea Glass?

[Dixie]

What is Sea Glass?

Sea Glass are pieces of glass that have been sanded by the rocks and sand.

So, an item of glass breaks, whether it is a bottle that went overboard,
something that was dumped,  or from a ship wreck, the pieces of glass roll
around on the ocean bottom from the motion of the waves.  This sands down
the sharp edges and the surface of the glass.

It then has a very grainy feel to it instead of the smooth glass feel.

Good sea glass is completely sanded, no shiny areas to the glass.

There are several colors, the most common are white, green and brown glass,
as those are the most common colors of bottles and glasses.  The clear glass
makes the white sea glass.
Brown bottles would be from beer bottles and things like that, the green
would be from wine bottles and bottles like that.  The clear, soda bottles
and drinking glasses.

Less common would be lavender, pink, and yellow glasses.  I have a necklace
with lavender glass, or otherwise known as amethyst glass.  This just has a
slight purple hue to the white glass.

Even more rare is the blue glass, from cobalt blue bottles and milk of
magnesia bottles.

And really rare is red glass.  That would be from red glass items like
perfume bottles and automobile tail lights.

We used to walk along the tide line and collect the pieces of glass that
washed up.

My grandmother would offer a finder's fee if we would find blue or red
glass.

She made a couple of lamps from the sea glass. She filled a bottle full of
the glass, she layered the glass until the bottle was full and then she had
the light fixture installed on the top of the bottle to make a lamp.

It would take a few years of collecting to fill each lamp.

A good bit of information can be read at the following link about sea and
beach glass:

http://glassbeachjewelry.com/history.htm

Dixie
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