Sea glass 101: How trash becomes popular treasure in the form of colorful stones

Dana Lorenze looks over the sea of colorful glass set out on a table in front of her, and can’t help but wonder about the previous life it lived.
The Laguna Niguel resident fell in love with sea glass years ago, an obsession that has overtaken her home, where sea glass fills vases and jars. After a storm, she scours the sand searching for what new has been churned up.
“It’s gone through a life, kind of like us,” Lorenze said on a recent day during a sea glass jewelry-making class held near the cottages at Crystal Cove State Beach. She is surrounded by her treasures. “Every one of them is unique.”
A customer’s charm bracelet featuring sea glass takes shape during a class in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Young kids follow Rick Boufford’s instructions to create their own sea glass jewelry pieces in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Crystal Cove is the setting for Rick Boufford’s sea glass jewelry making class in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)A sign invites beachgoers to a class on making sea glass jewelry in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Rick Boufford shows some of his customers how to create sea glass jewelry during his class in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)A young customer shows off her whale creation that she made using sea glass during a class in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Hailee Blalock looks for a piece of sea glass to make her jewelry piece during a class in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Lexi Whipple, 10, Allie Whipple, 9, Hailee Blalock, and Peggy Pearson, from left, create jewelry piece using sea glass in Crystal Cove on Wednesday, December 20, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)Debbie Sheldrake displays her sea glass bracelets in San Clemente on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)Debbie Sheldrake displays her sea glass bracelets in San Clemente on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)Show Caption of Expand
Sea glassing, as Lorenze calls it, has become so popular she’s hush about the best spots for finding prime pieces.
Rick Boufford, who hosts the class for the Crystal Cove Conservancy most Wednesdays, said one of the appeals of sea glass is you never know what you might find, or where you might find it. Some days, he can fill his cargo shorts’ pockets. Other days, in the same spot, he might come up dry.
“Every day is different, every part of the beach is different,” he said.
Unlike shells or rocks, sea glass is fair game to take from marine protected areas such as Crystal Cove because it’s not a natural resource.
Boufford, who has been teaching his class about six years, said he approaches it like a teacher, or scientist, sharing what he’s learned about sea glass through the years.
Sea glass can come from upstream and eventually make its way to the sand, or come from the ocean toward shore.
“It’s not just people sitting on the beach drinking beer and throwing their beer bottles in the ocean. A lot of it comes down our waterways,” he said. “When it gets out to the surf line, it’s kind of like a washer machine. When you have this combination of salt water, sand and rocks and the wave action – that’s kind of like nature’s natural tumbler.”
Boufford said he’s conducted experiments in a cement mixer and estimates it takes 80,000 to 100,000 tumbles to make a piece of glass smooth.
“We don’t know how long it will take for it to get back into the ocean and get tumbled again,” he said. “It could take 10 years to make a piece of sea glass.”
He estimates that if you have a wave coming in every 16 to 19 seconds, it could take 52 days to turn a piece of glass into smoother sea glass. Then, it goes from being junk into something for decoration.
“That’s what so cool about it,” Boufford said, “we’re making treasures out of trash and teaching (people) how to be respectful with things that can be reused.”
Boufford offers one basic tip for sea glass hunters.
“Get up early in the morning, the more beachcombers you have, the more people who will find it before you,” he said.
He estimates through the years, he’s picked up somewhere between 450 to 475 pounds of sea glass. He gives away up to 12,000 pieces to about 5,000 people who show up for his classes each year. He holds the classes weekly, except when he goes on vacation during the holidays. His next class will be Jan. 10.
Summer months are busiest, when 120 people show up through the day to learn about sea glass, sitting down to create their own jewelry or souvenir. Strangers instantly become friends, searching piles to help find specific shapes and colors and complimenting finished pieces.
For mother-daughter duo Anne and Becca Walker, joining the sea glass group has become a tradition the past eight years during their annual holiday vacation to Crystal Cove. Each year, Anne Walker finds the perfect green sea glass to make a mini Christmas tree, adorning it with a tiny red ornament to be hung above her kitchen sink.
“Last year, it was pouring rain and I was getting soaking wet and we were doing this,” she said.
There’s books dedicated to sea glassing that tell of the best beaches around the world to search, and what the colors tell of what the glass piece might have been in a previous life. Lorenze has a handful of books at her home, where her house is decorated with sea glass at every turn.
“I always feel like I have the sea around me in my house,” she said. “It keeps me connected to the water.”
Lorenze pages through a portable guide, trying to find the cobalt blue page, a rare find a friend came upon recently in Laguna Beach. That kind of glass was popular in the 1880s to the 1950s, though used as far back as ancient Egypt, mostly for medicines and poisons, the guide reads.
“You’re realizing you’re finding something special, it’s had a life,” she said. “If that bottle piece could talk.”
Occasionally she’ll find a “sharpie,” a piece of glass that needs more time in the elements, and she’ll chuck it back to the sea.
Find a greenish-yellow citron glass, and it may have held olive oil or wine. A deep pink color may have been a perfume bottle. Brown, a popular find, could have been a beer bottle, or any kind of food since darker glass helps with preservation.
Red is rare because gold oxide is required to make the color, and it’s an expensive process, Boufford said. In the ’40s, when the popularity for plastics caught on, most red glass products, such as the tail lights on cars, were swapped out for the cheaper product.
Debbie Sheldrake, who has been sea glass searching for 25 years and created San Clemente Sea Glass Jewelry, has made bracelets out of all sorts of sea glass, including one called “vaseline” that glows under a black light.
Sheldrake, who sells her jewelry at the San Clemente Pier Grill, just came back from a trip to Northern California, home of the famous “Glass Beach” at Fort Bragg.
Street signs there pay homage to the sea glass that put the small town on the map, and locals helped Sheldrake find the coves with the most blue and green glass.
“I was swimming it in, I was just so overwhelmed,” she said. “I cried… this place is just heaven.”
She loves how her mind goes blank when she’s on the beach searching for sea glass – it has been a needed therapy during hard times. She proudly shows her creations: bracelets formed out of tear-drop shapes, some adorned with charms, others letting the sea glass be the star.
As the popularity of sea glassing grows, it can be frustrating as people copy her designs, she said. She hasn’t made a blue bracelet in years because more people pick up the vibrant pieces before she can get to them.
“The secret is out,” she said.
Source: Oc Register