Sea Glass Crafts: Bookmarks

An easy and fun sea glass craft is the making of book marks. One reason I like them so much is that they are practical and make great gifts. Almost everyone reads something. Plus, they use smaller pieces of sea glass and look nice with beads or charms. They are not always easier than pendants to make because you are using small glass. However, they are more forgiving than pendants because if the wire doesn’t end up EXACTLY at the center when finishing off the bale it doesn’t ruin the look the way it can with a pendant.

What you need:

book mark finding (the ones with jump rings already on them are handy)

craft wire

sea glass

(beads are optional)

You wire wrap your sea glass and can hang it from craft wire to the jump ring on the bookmark or coil the wire, twist it, add beads or some charms. See below for some samples. The best way is to practice and get comfortable bending the wire, figuring out which gauge (thickness of wire) you like working with (I like 22 gauge some people like thicker or thinner). Here are some samples of recent work available at the Hingham Farmers Market on Saturdays and/or the Coop in Hingham during the week.

You can see that sometimes I hammer the sterling silver wire at the bottom and other times add a small peace charm. Sometimes I use more than one piece of sea glass in a bookmark. The wire, I find, can be more expensive than the actual bookmark finding if I use too much. So, for me, learning to use less wire is one of my crafting goals for the fall and winter and 2010. I am a huge fan of recycled sterling silver (like the green aspect, the cost and the texture of the wire) and I need to conserve how much I actually need in any piece.

 

Anyhow, have fun making your own sea glass bookmarks. Mine sell for $7.99 to $12.99 depending on how much silver I use, the color of the sea glass and the condition it is in, if I add crystal or sterling silver charms. It’s nice to have one item at least at a reasonable price point for customers who like sea glass but can’t afford or don’t know what color/style the sea glass lover in their life enjoys.