One of my favourite past times is spending the day on the beach looking for sea glass. I can spend hours looking for the tiniest pieces and easily lose track of time. But what is sea glass I hear you ask...
Sea glass is small pieces of glass which have spent many years being 'tumbled' in the sea. The salt within the sea water creates a natural frosted look and wears down any sharp edges creating lovely smooth pieces of fabulousness. Sea glass can be used to create art work or jewellery and spending time collecting it is a fantastic hobby (if I do say so myself!). The wonder of sea glass is that each individual piece has its own history and the years of tumbling turns each piece into something truly beautiful.
The ultimate place for sea glass hunting in the UK is Seaham, a beach on the north east coast. Back in the early 1900's there was a large glass factory in Seaham and all of the 'waste' glass was discarded in the sea at the end of the day. As a result, over 100 years later, there are many pieces of sea glass that get washed up on the shoreline daily.
I've wanted to go to Seaham for so long but due to the distance from Staffordshire, it's not really a place for a day trip. When my husband suggested going to visit the north east for the weekend, I was beyond excited! So last week, off we went up north and spent a whole day on the beach looking for treasure. I found the roundest, smoothest pieces I've ever come across and even found a couple of tiny 'multis' - multi coloured glass. I went prepared for rain as that's what the weather forecast said, but it turned out to be a lovely warm, sunny day and I ended up getting a little sunburnt. We even enjoyed some amazing chips on the beach for lunch - it really was my idea of a perfect day!
I already can't wait to go back and in the mean time I'm looking forward to making some new creations with all of the sea glass I found. Keep an eye out for these new pieces in the shop and for anyone that hasn't tried it yet, head to your nearest beach and go and hunt for sea glass!