Reclaimed Glass Pendant

I have this great creek near my house, its under one of the roads and is basically a hideout for every kid and teen in the neighborhood. The problem is that the "beach" there is covered with bits of glass, so I decided that I could do something with all that glass. It had already been broken into cool shapes and the edges had been softened by the water in the creek, so it seemed silly not to try to make it into jewelry out of it, it couldn't hurt anyone, the edges of every piece of glass in there is rounded, and the shapes were way too cool to pass up. I came up with a way to clean up our creek one piece at a time and make it into something cool instead of just throwing it away.

Step 1 Materials

Glass (see step 2)
wire
Some type of chain or string

Comments

[blambert1]

I have been collecting these glass pieces for years---I found if you have a dish washer you can put then in the silverware basket-they come out beautifully. I also make a loop at the top and bottom of the piece of glass, make a lot of these and then working from the bottom to the top hook them together with a piece of 20/24 gauge wire which holds a glass bead. Make 4 lengths 12" long and connect to a recycled horse shoe.

They make great sun catcher / wind chimes which can stay out side all year long.

[fmcgee1]

LOVE this idea!! I have a river near me, and I bet there is tons of stuff where people hang out there

[janet_aj27]

you could get brown glass from some brand of beer bottles. of, course don't drink the beer just for the bottle, you might forget why you drank it. :P

[taria]

man that's why I drank all those beers... I knew I forgot why I did...LOL

[RavingMadStudios]

That brown shard (not the one that looks like Australia) is a really interesting piece of glass. Do you have any idea what kind of bottle it came from?

[Ladytiger]

A friend used to collect "sun glass" from old mine camps, the broken pieces he put into a rock tumbler and it made them smooth and rounded, you could try that with your found glass.  Also, you can get diamond coated bits for Dremel, if you are careful you can just bore a hole thru the glass to place a bail or jump ring thru.  You need to drip a lttile bit of water on the glass as you do it.  I used a bit of cut rubber glove with a hole in the middle to keep a tiny drop at center.

[AmyLuthien]

In the second picture, the (brown) glass looks like Australia!  Neat idea, thanks for sharing!

[19samman98]

lol my hand xD

[tomha_the_cat]

The pendants look awesome, I have a ton of beach glass I've collected and have been looking for a project to use it for, thanks ;)

[jtobako]

Look up "wire wrapping" for more info and ideas on how to hold beach glass.

[ChrysN]

Nice idea, they look really cool!

[lemonie]

It's nice, I like these. But the background is a bit too strong, the black breaks up what you've made. Can these be pictured against something less heavily contrasted? L