Make Your Own Sea Glass Tumbled Glass Easy Step By Step Beach Glass Tutorial For The Perfect Recipe

[Music] do you love seaglass as much as I do it is just the coolest stuff it takes years and years for glass to be tumbled within the water against the rocks and the sand and just the elements to where the edges down and frost the glass and and all of that and I live near the Gulf but every time I've gone there I've never been able to find sea glass so I've wanted to use some in an upcoming project and I didn't want to purchase it and I thought you know what Allison you can make your own bow see glass or tumbled glass so in this tutorial I am gonna show you exactly how I got this glass to become tumbled glass or sea glass I'm gonna go ahead and get set up with supplies needed and I will be back so what you're going to need is some glass and you want to make sure that the glass that you have is actually colored glass and not just treated with the coating and sometimes that's hard to figure out but I'm pretty sure all the ones that I have here and I know for sure this one is actual colored glass I got this one at Dollar Tree and it's kind of a teal turquoise color this one I picked up at Goodwill and this one I also got at Goodwill and a lot of times you can tell that if the bottom is colored as well then it probably chances are there is no treatment on this you can also look to see if there's any kind of scratching the treatment will be on the outside another key thing that you can do is soak it in water overnight and once you've done that if you scratch on the inside or the outside with your fingernail and the coating starts to come off then that's not going to work so that one was from Goodwill and these two are from Dollar Tree and I believe that these are going to be not treated that they are actual colored glass but we'll find out together in this experiment so let me get the next thing that you'll need and I'll be back next items that you will need are some sand and I'm actually going to go with this very coarse sand you can use place and but I think it would probably take longer for the process to happen I'm trying to kind of speed this up or I can you know have some sea glass within a day or two so as you can see this is very very coarse I'm also going to add I didn't have any pebbles in the yard and I guess I probably could have looked a little harder but I remembered that I have this bag of water pebbles and I'm gonna pick out some little ones to throw in there and I may even add some seashells I mean what the heck let's kind of give it the environment that it was originally in and see if it works okay so this is a rock tumbler that I got from Harbor Freight it was on sale in I used a 20% off coupon which they have all the time and it took the price down to I think it was like forty seven dollars which is not bad at all for a dual drum tumbler this one got really good reviews so we're gonna try it out together and what I have not even tried this yet so hmm we will find out together I'll unpack it off-camera but it's got the dual drums it's got the silicon or the rubber inside of the drums so it'll be more quiet we're gonna tumble the glass in it instead of rocks to make some beautiful sea glass just let you know when you go hunting for glass you can find all sorts of stuff at Goodwill like this here I don't think that this is a treated glass I think that this is blue throughout actually no look if you look closely you can see that the coating is starting to come off so unfortunately if I tumble this it's probably not all going to stay blue this one here is definitely blue all the way through it's just a very light blue and I'm gonna go ahead and get set up to break some glass with you and I'll be done so when you break your glass you're gonna want to wear protective eyewear and you're gonna want to put it in some kind of a bag and I'm just gonna use these Ziploc bags and the first one I'm gonna break is this red one so I put it in the bag and I'm gonna zip the bag up lay it down here and take my hammer and this is the part where you can get your aggressions out you don't want to go too crazy though cuz you want big pieces little pieces whatever so let's start here and it doesn't want to break whoa there we go that was fun all right so now you look at the pieces in the bag and you just go ahead and break them up more until you're happy with what you got and this is making my dog go nuts I want some big ones I want some little ones you just kind of got a look at them see what you got and because I'm using these for an upcoming project so I don't want them too big and I don't want them too small all right I think that looks good for the read now let's go and break the blue one and I may have to get something bigger to put that in oh no I think it's gonna fit yep dogs going nuts all right here we go this might be a little harder nope we got it I love that sound see what we got you're not really gonna be able to control obviously the shapes of things but you can kind of control the size of them so I don't want them too big and I do want some small ones let's see what we got here all right that looks pretty good I'm gonna go ahead and break the rest of them off camera and we will go inside and set up our tumbler all right I'm back in the studio I did want to let you know that these dollar tree vases they are treated with color they are not true colored glass and the reason is when I cracked it you could see you know that the bottom was not colored and some of the treatment had come off on some of the pieces I'm gonna tumble a couple in there just to see what they look like but they're probably just gonna come out clear glass which is fine so I just want to let you know that these are definitely not colored glass they are treated all right my next thing and I want to stress this completely you have got to wear protective wear when you break this glass even though you're breaking it in a bag you want to have goggles on preferably gloves on your hands do it in an area that if little shards get out and you walk you know definitely do it outside but dude in an area that is not walkthrough you know by someone who might have bare feet because there are gonna be little shards left there and those little buggers can hurt really bad when you step on them so definitely be very careful doing this project this is definitely not a project for kids now another word of advice once you smash your glass up transfer your glass to another bag because that bag is gonna have holes in it from the glass you know puncturing it as you were hitting it and see all these little shards these little babies are dangerous please be very careful with this project so I transferred all the glass into another bag and that does not have holes and it isn't going to be releasing little shards all over my studio I tend to like to walk barefoot so that would not be good alright so I took the tumbler one of the tumblers from my rock tumbler and I'm going to show you how to open these because when I first tried I was like what and the directions they're not really good about showing you exactly just has opened a tumbler well you will how do I do that so this is how you do it the first thing you do is you unscrew this little rubber nut our cap and you take the washer off then you're going to take this part off and how I did that was very carefully released it with a flathead screwdriver now you're like whoa how the heck do I get that out alright well put your rubber nut back on there and kind of pull this back this is all rubber so then it opens up and now you're good to go so I am going to but actually I'm going to leave that on there so what we're gonna do is we're going to load some of our glass I'm first gonna put in some of this lunch which I know is just going to end up being clear but I'm okay with that and it'll be nice just to see what its gonna look like now do as I say not as I do please make sure that you have gloves on when you do this so you do not get shards in your fingers that might be interesting we'll throw that in there and I want some little pieces I'm actually making this for an upcoming project for you guys and I wanted to add some sea glass in it I don't have any sea glass and sea glass is not the easiest thing to find at the beach so I figured I would make my own so I'm just gonna throw a few of these in here because I really honestly think they're just gonna end up being clear so now we'll go to our big bag of the colors we know are gonna stay colored and we've got red there are some red in there and we've got the blue blue in there and I really love this trick place so I'm gonna throw a big piece of that in there we'll have a big chunk and some smaller pieces and I'm gonna go put gloves on because these teeny teeny teeny little shards I know are gonna get me so all I really need is one and probably should have something better than this but this is all but I have available to me right now which is better than nothing so back to picking glass now these will really make some interesting sea glass they're nice and thick but I remember little ones too because that's what I need for my project there are some little pieces so I need to find some of those all right well rather than you guys watch me pick through glass I'm gonna do this off camera and I'll be right I have now added as much as I want to add it's about a quarter of the way full they suggest halfway to three-quarters but we're gonna try it like this here's a piece I missed so I'm gonna go ahead and carefully take this glove off case there's any little shards on it and now we are right the first thing I want to do is weigh what I have these tumblers can hold up to three pounds each so I want to see what I've got in the way of glass so far I did add a little more and we're about a little under half so we're at almost two pounds now I want to go ahead and add my rocks which I've got about a handful here and I decided not to add the seashells because all my seashells were so pretty and I don't want to ruin them so I've got about a handful of these water pebbles and I'm gonna put those in and now I am going to add my sand and I'm just gonna kind of eyeball that and I haven't really used all that much so we'll just put a little bit more in you really want a lot of coarseness in there to you know scratch it that glass and and scratch at those sides to smooth them out and even them out and the last step is we are going to add water just up to let's level this out just up to what's in there to pounds three ounces so I'm going to add water just to the bottom of where the glasses okay so now we have our water and I think I'm actually gonna dump a little so I dumped a little bit out and we are just under the level of what's in there okay so I'm gonna wait again now the reason I'm laying this is because if it's over three pounds which is what it you know we're at two pounds seven ounces so that's good you don't want to overburden your a bunt your tumbler because what it'll do is it will either burn your motor out or it will break your belt and then you won't have use of a tumbler until you replace those parts so now all we have to do is go ahead and close this up and to do that you just put the lid on and carefully pull this around so that you can push the lid down you want to be careful when you're using anything sharp with this because you don't want to compromise the seal that will be on here to keep that water in so I'm just kind of putting it in and pushing all the screwdrivers in there then you push down make sure it's on there tight unscrew this we're going to put our lid back on and go ahead and put a washer back on and screw the plastic nut back on and now I'm gonna go ahead and take this over to the tumbler and we'll get the process started all right so this is gonna be a little shaky because I've got to hold the camera but here is the tumbler I've already loaded this one with something and I'm not gonna tell you it's gonna be for another project and it's an experiment and if it comes out I'll share it with you if it doesn't no one ever know I made a boo-boo so what we're going to do is put the second one in there and it's resting here and that one is resting here and we're gonna go ahead and turn the unit on and that's all there is to it we have to wait till in 24 hours I'll be back we'll open it up we'll see what they look like but we need to go more time then we'll go ahead and do that so I will see me tomorrow okay so it has been 24 hours and I'm gonna go ahead and turn the tumbler off and we're gonna check and see what we have so far and I'll probably want to do it for another 24 hours but let's see what we've got yeah I've brought in some water so that we can clean the pieces off and let me grab some paper towels to dry them so that we can see hopefully we have some progress all right we've got our sin and our pebbles and here's a nice piece of glass it looks like the edges are getting rounded definitely they are not sharp anymore I'm not I will not cut myself on them so that looks good let me put a piece here nobody can put that on and what else we've got a blue one here see if we can find one that's more interesting to look at all right this one definitely the edges have gotten rounded on that and it's no longer sharp and here's our orange that I knew was gonna end up turning clear and it's got a looks like a scratch or a crack in it what's else we've got let's find a blue one here's a pretty good blue one and a red piece and let's see one more here's a good-sized turquoise that looks pretty yeah six I can find another interesting blue one I know I said a the top two the bottle in here somewhere it's probably down at the bottom of all of this that's a cool one that's kind of cool would be interesting to find that bottle top though but it's down in the bottom of and as you can see the water is no longer clear it's becoming kind of sludgy but it's still fairly runny here's a good red one alright these look shiny because they're what let me put this off to the side so we're gonna go ahead and dry them and we're gonna see if we have gotten any of the frost yet to the glass that will resemble beach glass and oh yeah definitely frost going on there very nicely frosted for sure let's see how the blue looks edges red yeah these look pretty cool and this is just 24 hours I am probably gonna rut let this go another 24 actually I know I'm gonna do that will let it go another 24 and check it and then possibly go another 24 after that but I just wanted to pull them out and check the edges this one's still a little sharp not too bad though and I think that looks like it probably fractured there while it was in the tumbler and made a new break so that needs to wear down this one's kind of cool but yeah all these edges that were really sharp I can touch them now without getting cut so it is definitely working and I'm excited about that very excited about that so that's a good formula with the sand and the rocks that's that coarse sand and that's cool-looking too so this is what we have so far we still need to tumble to get rid of that shiny whoop and the other side still needs to tumble as well but look at the frost on that that definitely looks awesome and the red that's looking pretty good and the blue the edges still are a little shiny so those need to wear down a little more and this chunk of blue that's looking pretty cool this red one definitely frost it up in the blue like I said here I believe that cracked just recently in the tumbler so that will need to keep going look at that look at that turquoise that is so pretty and that was a Dollar Tree a Dollar Tree glass so yeah I'm really excited about that so I am going to put these back into the tumbler and we are going to tumble them for another 24 hours I don't need to add any more water I think we're good with sand we're good with rocks we have a mixture that's working it took that shiny glass and turned it matte so I'm gonna go ahead prep this by putting the lid back on I have to clean the lid up because you don't want any sand on the edges to break that seal so I'm gonna go ahead do that put it back on the tumbler and I'll be back in 24 hours right it has been 48 hours so I'm gonna go ahead and open this up and hopefully we have nice rounded edges and everything's looking like some sea glass alright what I'm gonna do is we are going to I have a big bowl here and a strainer and I am going to pour this into there and then I'm going to take this out and clean everything up I to do this do not dump if you see there's some pretty nasty stuff under here you do not want to pour that down your sink so I'm gonna take this out in the yard and I'm gonna hose all this off and clean it up and we will be back to inspect our pieces I'm excited and you take the stuff outside and clean it up make sure that you clean your tumbler out really good and let that dry before putting it back together and it'll be ready for another day of tumbling alright here is all of the glass I'm going to pour it out here and we've got our little pebbles in there as well I've got some big pieces and some really little pieces and it's all still wet so it still looks very shiny so I'm going to need to dry these off and then we will go ahead and take a look at them but yeah I am like super happy with look at the - the hair on my fingers the edges are so freakin smooth look at that oh I'm excited look at those edges they're just not ragged or sharp anymore here's kind of a cool one clear where's that top ooh that's really cool that came out very rounded and this is just 48 hours in the tumbler with what I mixed in there with the pebbles in the sand and here's the top - that wine bottle and look at how smooth those edges are oh yes I'm excited this worked alright I'm going to go ahead and pick out the pebbles and dry everything off so it's not looking shiny anymore and we will inspect them again right this is my batch of sea glass I got a ton of it out of that tumbler so I'm just gonna kind of go through them instead of picking up each one but look at this this is amazing I am so excited with the results just very rounded edges and extremely frosted look at all these little pieces I got and I got and I did these little pieces for an upcoming project look at that one there that long turquoise one that was excuse me that was that teal bottle or turquoise bottle not bottle glass that I had gotten from Dollar Tree if I can get things to focus better but I got all these little pieces and here's that red vase that I picked up at Goodwill and that came out really nice and this is more of that glass those darker pieces those were actually from the bottom of that glass and the lighter pieces were the outside of the glass so this is just 48 hours that clear that was once that orange vase from Dollar Tree that was just color treated it was not actual orange glass but I'm happy with it because now I've got clear tumbled glass or or C glass also and that blue was the wine bottle that you saw me smashing in the beginning of this tutorial and there's the lid or the lip to the bottle that's really cool I am just so freakin happy with the results on this and that's just a little bit of what on they're still so yeah this is this is what you can do with broken glass and a rock tumbler and a whole lot of patience you know I can actually go longer than the 48 hours and get even more rounded edges so you don't need to stop here you know I just just decided to stop here there may be a few pieces that I'm gonna run back through the tumbler that have a little more pointy like that one there is just a tad pointy at the top I really love that one these big pieces I mean look at this piece here these are just so stinkin cool I am just so happy so yeah that is what you can do with a whole lot of patience and a rock tumbler I hope that you found this tutorial helpful and I hope it inspires you there's so many things that you can do with your pho sea glass you can wire wrap it you can add it into mosaics I'm gonna be doing a future tutorial with the smaller pieces add it into your polymer clay pieces to create pendants I mean really the sky is the limit I do want to mention these are tumbled glass these are not sea glass and it would be wrong to pass them off as sea glass so just keep that in mind if you are going to sell your projects are that you're going to sell anything that you create with these to not miss inform people that they are actually sea glass sea glass is quite hard to find there are certain parts of the country that it's prevalent I don't live in any of those I've always been fascinated by sea glass and I'm just really happy that I can create my own version of sea glass and use it to create many beautiful things so if you enjoyed this video please give me a thumbs up subscribe to my channel and click on that little bell to get notifications of when I post free tutorials please give me a thumbs up and until next time thanks for watching you you [Music]

Channel: Thinking Outside The Box

Views: 131,405

Keywords: sea glass, seaglass, tumbled glass, colorful, colored, easy, fool proof, quick, rock tumbler, sand, pebbles, water, shells, coarse, grits, smooth, frosted glass, matte, safety, diy, how to, do it yourself, craft, crafting, tutorial, free, ocean, beach glass, patience, cobalt glass, blue glass, red glass, clear, vase, bottle, wine, alison merritt, thinking outside the box, recycle, repurpose, jewelry, projects, mosaics, dollar tree, resale shop, good will, make, create, making

Id: sB5GHONrvbE

Length: 36min 34sec (2194 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020