Keeping Memories of Summer Alive

by Susan Anderson.

Each summer we go to the beach to visit family. While everyone else grabs a chair and heads out to sit by the water to soak up the sun, I grab my backpack for a day of adventure.

Shell Pendants

I love to walk the beach looking for shells, stones and sea glass for creating jewelry. Sea glass is a rare find these days, but I usually come home with pounds of rocks and shells to wire wrap into pendants or necklaces.

When looking for shells, I am searching for pieces rather than an unbroken shell. What interests me is the shape- is it interesting? Is the size right? Does it have good texture? Will it lay right? Can I wire wrap it fairly easily?

After getting home with my newest collection, the shell pieces are cleaned then sorted by size and stashed away for another day.

This week I pulled out some of my summer finds and made several wire wrapped shell pendants. Each was painted with a base layer of an earthy metallic paint, followed by a few more layers of metallic paint in different tones for highlighting.

After I am satisfied with how it looks, I paint the entire shell with black paint, let it sit there a little less than a minute, then using a baby wipe, I wipe off the black. This usually leaves the black in the indentations of the shell.

Back of Pendants

Once all the paint is dried, a few layers of polyacrylic sealer is applied to keep the paint from chipping. The final step is to add the wire wrapping, using 18 gauge copper.

The wire wrapping allows me to create a bail rather than to have to drill a hole for the pendant.

This is one way for me to keep the memories of our summer vacation alive. When I wear a shell pendant it always takes me back to the sights and scents from my walks on the beach.

Susan Anderson
Earthy By Design
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