Sea Glass from Lake Erie

I have been collecting sea glass from our beach for 23 years.  And, it is kept in jars and containers all over the house, although I prefer to have it on display as we get into the warmer part of the year.  It seems to be the right time to enjoy.

A portion of my beach  glass collection

Most of the colors that I find here are blues and greens, which is typical on our part of Lake Erie.  Most come from bottles and from insulators.  The glass gets tumbled around in the waves before washing ashore.

Pretty blues and greens

Collecting sea glass is a world wide past time, and I belong to a couple of Facebook groups where people share their finds.

The most desirable colors have eluded me for the most part.  Red, purple, orange. . .but, I do have a very few precious pieces of those colors.  Mostly, they are marbles, which, as an object, is also desirable.  None of these came to me quickly.  It was years of scouring the shoreline that yielded my treasured pieces.  I feel like Smeagol/Gollum saying "my precious". . .LOL!

My precious!

I love the piece of Coca Cola bottle in the above picture that has the "C" .  For Cynthia, of course!  Another piece in the foreground is part of a bottle neck. . .

Now, there are some very firm rules about collecting and displaying sea glass.  It must be something found on the shore, it cannot be "tumbled" glass, which is something that cannot be entered into competition.  Yes, there are competitions!  And, purposely throwing glass into the ocean or lake with hopes that it will become weathered by the tide is also strictly OUT!  Besides, that is called LITTERING.

If you notice from the photos, most of the sea glass has a frosted look to it.  This is very desirable!  It should have rounded edges, and look a little pitted. . .

Shells that I have in this little tableau are from the beaches we've visited in NJ, FL, NC and SC.  We don't get very many shells here, outside of zebra mussels, and those are not too attractive.  We have family members living near Long Beach Island, NJ, and whenever we're there, we go to the beach.  I pick up shells that others would pass by, because they're not intact or as beautiful as a whole shell.  It doesn't matter to me.  I love the fragments that I've collected.  They are all beautiful!

Another small collection I have of beach finds consists of pottery or china shards that have washed ashore:

Shards of pottery/china from the beach

 This just speaks to my romantic sensibilities. . .Maybe these were cargo that got shipwrecked.  Or, they may have been part of the "ship's china", lost during a storm. . .I can just imagine the stories these could tell. . .

Shipwrecked?

Along our shore of the Lake, there have been numerous ships that went down, documented passenger, freight and war ships.  We're not far from the "Battle of Lake Erie" where Oliver Hazzard Perry defeated the British during the War of 1812.

Carl and I were fortunate to attend the re-enactment 200th anniversary of that event in September 2013.  I will eventually post some photographs.  It was quite spectacular. . .

I will post again some of my treasures from the lake.  If you look at my first blog post, I have photographs of our beach.  Here's the link:


Seasons on our beach
Thank you for stopping by today, and thank you to all who are following me! 

I am going to link up this post to Jeanne's Blue Monday party at Backyard Neighbor:

Blue Monday

Anything Blue Friday
Cynthia