Cheryl and Oliver's mid-winter wedding - with Glasswing Jewellery ethical handmade wedding rings

"We ordered our bespoke wedding rings from Glasswing Jewellery. We were delighted that our rings were made from the same piece of recycled silver and hand hammered. Oliver doesn’t wear jewellery, so the simplicity of the ring is just beautiful."

What an honour to see Cheryl and Oliver's green and gorgeous, not to mention heartwarming mid-winter wedding on the Fens over on the Green Union blog. It's a generous rundown by Cheryl of all the thought and planning that went into their fabulous day, beautiful glimpse of their warmth, joy and love for each other. There are vintage campervans, fabulous lace frocks, muddy wellies, oh and did I mention I made the rings?! ;) 

Sea glass - what exactly is it?

Sea glass , "seaglass" or sometimes "beach glass" is glass which is found on beaches after having been tumbled smooth and frosted by the ocean waves over an undetermined length of time.



Some of the glass I have found is very old, from an era when glass was far more widely used, and attitudes to the environmental damage caused by dropping litter into the sea were somewhat different to what they are today.

There is an infinite variety of colours of sea glass, and of course every single piece of sea glass is totally one off, having been on its own unique journey through the tides and currents of the ocean.

Some sea glass has travelled great distances, washing up on shores far away from where it was originally dumped, whilst other pieces have stayed trapped for decades in harbours, dropped by sailors and smoothed and tumbled by the tides whilst yachts and fishing boats go by.

Around the coast of Cornwall, we find lovely sea foam, aquas, pale greens, deep greens, and whites. These shades to me, represent the colours of the sea in Cornwall, and are the perfect choice to reflect the unique coast of my favourite place! Much rarer colours found on Cornish shores include blues, certain greens and deep aquas, and lavender.

Grey, pink, teal, black, yellow and turquoise and red (found once in about every 5,000 pieces), and orange (the least common type of sea glass), are all extremely rare colours. Rare sea glass in these colours is almost certainly rarer than diamonds.

The older pieces tend to be smoother, and rounded in shape, whilst the newer pieces wash up in all manner of squared or flat shapes. In jewellery all different shapes are used , and to great effect. The special 'glow' of sea glass, the way in which each piece catches the light in a different way, and the variety of subtle shades - pale aquas, frosted whites, palest blues to deepest colbalt blues and of course the array of greens all add to the magic and mystery of sea glass.

Recently my passion for genuine Sea Glass has led me to look for this increasingly rare commodity further afield.

I have managed to source some amazing examples of glass, some of which are at least 100 years old, that were discarded from an old glass processing in the North East of England, at Seaham in Durham. I have started to design around these pieces of glass, and I really love the pieces I've made.

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Who says sea glass can't be bling?

 

 

Who says eco-friendly sea glass jewellery can't be bling?

These beautiful ocean-worn nuggets of glass were sent to me by a customer, collected from #beaches on the Isle of Wight and New Zealand.

My customer commissioned me to make another set of two charm bangles, this time for her daughter (she kept the first set for herself).

All the sterling silver is 100% recycled, the upcycled sea glass is hand cut or drilled by me, and the bangles were then tumble polished for a deep shine. 

 

Raised blue sea glass nugget ring commission

I thought it was time to write a post detailing the process of setting a small piece or 'cabochon' of sea glass into a ring, not least the painstaking hand shaping involved. Sea glass is nowhere near as strong as the majority of gemstones, glass is obviously easily breakable, and despite having rolled around in the ocean for unknown lengths of time, sometimes decades, gaining its gorgeous texture and frosted exterior, one small slip of my tool or drill renders my hard gained beach treasure nothing more than a splinter of sharp, unusable coloured glass. 

So, much of the shaping I do is by hand, taking great care not to touch the lovely surface of the sea glass which will be showing once the ring is finished. Whilst many processes are quicker using a pendant drill, I prefer to take my time and stay in control of the situation rather than remove more material than I intended, and then have to waste any hard-won sea glass pieces!   I use a grinding stone flat on my bench, soaked in water, and I keep the work liberally sprinkled with water whilst I work. This stops any glass dust from flying around, and keeps the piece cool too.  The glass is carefully dragged up and down the stone, turning as I go, the aim being to make a rounded edge to my cabochon. The bottom is easily smoothed to make setting more straight forward, and eliminates the rocking that sometimes happens when setting irregular shaped stones or other materials. 

It can sometimes take a good hour or so to get the little 'gem' of sea glass to the right shape and thickness, and in the meantime, my hands have taken quite a hammering!  It's not unusual to find the tips of my fingers are somewhat smoother than they were at the beginning!  I find microporous tape wrapped around the fingers quite useful at times like these. And lashings of hand cream!

Once the sea glass is the required shape, all that remains is to set it into the ring.  I make sure that the rest of the ring is completely finished.  The last thing you need to be doing is filing or cleaning up once the glass is in situ, one false move with the file and I'd have a lovely scratch right across my precious, and at this point now, totally unique sea glass cacbochon.  This particular piece of blue sea glass is SO RARE, it is in fact the only one of this shade of blue I have ever found, in this particular shape. 

So the glass I have carefully shaped to fit, is popped into the fine silver bezel, which I made to fit the ring band - and the silver bezel edge is gently pushed over the glass wth a pusher tool to hold it in the bezel securely.  It is smoothed down using a polished burnisher, taking care not to slip and scratch the glass.

I find the glass will easily withstand a short spin in the tumber with stainless steel shot, but not too long about 15 mins is probably enough, I don't want to loosen the setting, or lose any of the frosted texture of the glass.  Once the ring is totally dry, a little polish with wire wool gives me the final warm polish I really like, and it won't harm the glass.  To protect it though, I usually place my thumb over it whilst I do any last minute polishing.

 Simple 5x2.5mm sterling silver band, with rare mid-blue sea glass cabochon. All recycled materials.

I love the way the light catches the sea glass, it appears to glow from within - but then that's why we all love sea glass isn't it?!

Eco friendly handmade wedding set - 2 stackers and a chunky D-shaped band

Big congratulations to John and Danielle, on their upcoming wedding day this July.  They commissioned this series of satin finished personalised rings.  I rarely get asked to make the stamped stacker ring (the thinner ones) in satin, so I thought I'd take a photo or two - I think they look lovely.

 

 

 Glasswing stacker rings are also available in a high polish finish, as are all Glasswing rings.

www.glasswingjewellery.com

The 6mm D-shaped chunky band here also looks lovely in the satin finish, and has personal messages stamped inside.  It is available in recycled silver, recycled white gold and yellow gold too.  

18ct white gold eco wedding rings for Valentines weekend

This set of personalised 6mm and 7mm 18ct recycled white gold wedding rings were commissioned at the very last minute by a lovely couple tying the knot in Cornwall just after this Valentines weekend. 

 I hand forged them from 100% white gold bullion refined and milled here in the UK.

stamping the gold

forming the rings using a hide hammer (veggie
options are available,but I'm afraid I just don't
 find they come up to scratch)

after soldering, forming the edges for a low
dome half round profile

 The finished rings.


 Despite the storms, the flood, 48 hour power cuts, and the Post Office's best efforts to stop them, these beauties arrived at their destination, with three hours to go before the wedding ceremony.  One relieved jeweller!  The happy couple were delighted, and I was absolutely thrilled to make these rings for them.

Gently does it heating these!

sea glass duo and trio bangles

Never one to make life easy for myself, I have found I absolutely love these sea glass bangles.   I make them by threading the sea glass charms directly on to a chunky 3mm hammered bangle, and soldering it shut - being uber careful not to break the sea glass. 

This is a new design incorporating little soldered closed rings on to the bangle too, with two pieces of sea glass - pale aqua and white.  Prices for these heavy recycled sterling silver bangles start at £125, and they are available on a made to order basis through my site.  The trio of aqua, white and green glass (above)  has been proving very popular this summer.

sea glass bangle

Autumn Greens

I sold these to a lovely (returning) customer the other day, and as I was getting them ready to pack up and post earlier, I thought I'd take a few pictures, because I just really love these. The different shades of greens are great, and they catch the last of the garden's autumn sun so well.

Glowing sea greens

Green sea glass and forged sterling silver hoop earrings.

That's more like it.....

Great beach, big sky ~ bliss

This was the view in my right eye as I lay down on the sand today. This evening the wetsuits are drying in the garden. There is sand in the hallway again. Beach life is back. All is well.

I'm going to resist to urge to describe at length the sheer joy and rare relaxation I felt watching the children playing on their bodyboards, in a large pool left by the retreating tide. Or the unexpected pleasure of watching two smiling teenage boys spontaneously doing Duelling Banjos (well, one had a guitar) on the rocks behind us, and everyone's grateful appreciation of their music, young or old. Suffice to say today was just a stonkingly lovely day.

So with things back to normal on the beach front, there has not been much time for blogging. Last week in the workshop was productive though, using the sea glass we found in the new cove we discovered. Here are some of the new sea glass earrings, these and the rest can be found in my Etsy shop.

Another pair of stacker earrings, which I love. They hang at just around 3" long. My pair are getting loads of compliments. This pair is made with 2 pieces of sea glass, rather than recycled glass. Finished with subtle frosted recycled beads.
These are cold forged sterling silver, with pale aqua and white tone sea glass, found on our secret Cornish cove, and hand drilled in my workshop. The 'spines' of the earrings are hammered flat to prevent the beads coming off - really simple, and absolutely stunning.

Ridged sea glass spiral hoop earrings. The sea glass and the silver spirals are removable, so you've kind of got three pairs in one - the plain cold forged (by me) hoops (approx 1" diameter), plain sea glass hoops, silver spiral hoops, or the sea glass and spirals on the hoops (as pictured). That's four pairs in one actually!
I was amazed to find these two pieces of this lovely ridged glass that matched so well.
Drilling them was quite nerve racking. But it was worth it.

Wave sea glass earrings

These are so clean looking on,
love the length, and that they are all one piece.

Same only not looking at you.