Making a sea glass mobile
If you’ve ever wondered how to make a sea glass mobile with the sea glass you have found, read on. It may surprise some of my more recent jewelry customers that I used to make mobiles with stained glass and sea glass. In fact it’s how I got into making jewelry, but that’s for another blog post. The tips and techniques that I’ll share with you require no drilling and very little equipment except a few pairs of pliers and of course some larger pieces of sea glass.
What you will need:
- needle nosed pliers
- round nosed pliers
- wire cutting pliers
- 20, 18 or 16 gauge wire (I used copper and aluminum because they are both quite pliable). If your pieces of sea glass are not very big, doing the larger gauge wire (actually thinner) might be better and you can get a better variety of this thickness wire at a craft store and even in colors too.
- glass beads
- sea glass of whatever size, color or quality you may have. (For my sea glass hunting tips, read this blog post). It's quite possible that this technique could be applied to pebbles or even shells if you like beach combing for those too.
The Process
Decide on which piece you want where on your mobile. For this example I’ll be making a dangle type mobile with these large and chunky pieces of sea glass that I found in Barcelona. They are obviously too large for me to use in my jewelry but I really wanted to have them as a memento of my trip there and the fabulous sea glass hunting that I did there. If you want to read about my seaglassing in Barcelona, head here.
For the mobile, I decided to place the lovely aqua triangular piece in the middle.
With your wire, use your round nosed pliers to form a perfect loop with the copper. This will be the top of the wire wrapped setting.
I decided to do a swirly serpentine design on my middle piece as it is the biggest and most beautiful piece of the three pieces. I used the round nosed pliers to help make the serpentine shape.
I created another loop at the bottom, once again using my round nosed pliers. From this point I folded it back up to the top, wrapped it around the top once and then took the wire to the bottom and wrapped it a few times around the piece creating a cage for the glass. The back looks a bit messy, but just think of it as a random artsy look.
Once you get back up to the top you wrap the wire around the top just below the rounded top and twist a few times and snip off with the wire cutters. It should look something like this.
For my top piece it also needed two hanging rounded loops and I just did linear wrapping for the top and bottom pieces. The bottom piece only needed one loop at the top.
This is the fronts of these chunky pieces.
This is the backs of these pieces. Now that I see them here I think I prefer the back of the left one to its front.
Assembling your mobile
Now it’s time for your beads. I decided I wanted a two metal look for my dangle, so I used aluminum wire for the in between sections. Make a loop with your round nosed pliers. I like using an additional round loop to hold my beads between . Thread your beads and then finish off with another round. I like creating an artsy hook for the top, but use your creativity.
Now just connect them using your needle nosed pliers and then decide where to hang it.
I decided to hang my creation in our bathroom from a piece of driftwood that I found on one of my jewelry pebble hunting trips.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this tutorial on creating a sea glass mobile. Feel free to pin this if you do Pinterest and if you get to making one, please tag me in your social media, I’m @andiclarkejewelry on Instagram. I’d love to see your creativity come to life with your sea glass finds.
If you’d like to see my sea glass jewelry, you can find it here.
