Exploring Campground Adventures This Summer
We’ve been enjoying our campground adventures here in Michigan, making the most of our time in our trusty travel trailer. It’s another Friday night in the campground. I’ve been watching the people across the road set up their campsite. It appears to be two families – sisters maybe? One family is in a travel trailer, and the other is in a tent. I watched as the young couple set up the tent. No fighting. No bad words. Just teamwork, plain and simple and the job was completed in less than 30 minutes.
A Hot Summer’s Day at the Campground
This week was hot. Like miserably hot. The humidity was so high it was like trying to breathe underwater. Petra and I stayed inside the trailer with the AC running. King, brave soul that he is, cut the grass during the height of the heat. I can only imagine what my friends in Texas and Arizona are feeling when temperatures rise above 100° day after day.
Glass Artistry: Crafting Beauty from Broken Glass
To stave off the boredom of staying inside, I’m continuing with my glass artistry project. I’ve been taking beer bottles, wine bottles, old vases from thrift stores and even some colored pie pans, smashing them with a hammer and tumbling the pieces in my rock tumbler. I actually wrap the glass inside one of my old totes before attacking them with the hammer. (The totes, by the way, are from my sewing phase, which passed several years ago). It takes two weeks to tumble the glass to get the rounded edges I want – week one I use a coarse grit, and week two I use a finer grit. This gives the glass a “beach glass,” or “sea glass” look. Although real beach glass (the pieces actually found on the beach) actually have a more frosted/scratchy look.
Crafting with Recycled Glass
After the glass is tumbled, I use my Dremel drill to drill holes into the top and bottom of the glass. It’s slow, tedious work. I then string the glass pieces together using 26-gauge wire and space them with glass beads I either purchase at thrift stores or a local big box store. I usually hang four strands of glass/beads from a piece of driftwood or a round metal ring (sold on Amazon for making dream catchers) covered in scrap material. I’ve sold a few in the campground store but I have more hanging in the trailer than I know what to do with them. I’ll have to take them down before we start traveling or we are going to have banged-up glass splinters all over the front reading nook area of the trailer (most people have a table in the trailer front; we’ve opted for a reading nook for me).
This week I decided to give polishing glass a shot. It will take two more weeks to use a pre-polish and then final polish on the glass. I’m hoping the glass will have a sparkling effect.
Earlier this summer our youngest son gave me a box of stained-glass pieces he found on a job site where he works during the summer months (he teaches building trades during the school year). I’ve had a good time tumbling them along with the other glass I find.
Turning Glass Fragments into Wearable Art
Last week I decided to take some of the splintered pieces of glass and make pendant necklaces with them. I take the smaller pieces of glass and drill just one hole in the top and add other pieces of glass to make designs. I place a necklace clasp in the hole I drilled and add a cord. Viola — a necklace.
