Wine Bottles

Today's Silver Price: $32.64/t.oz.

I've had this idea for a while now to make jewelry out of recycled glass from wine bottles. The idea was inspired from an empty Riesling bottle that was a beautiful blue-green color. I have always loved glass beads, their transparency and the way they reflect light. I thought large glass pieces would make really interesting jewelry components.

At first I thought about cutting the neck of the bottle into rings and using those as jewelry components. Then I thought about cutting or breaking the bottle into pieces and shaping and smoothing them to use in earring designs.

I learned that wine bottles are a lot stronger than they seem! One day I took an empty wine bottle outside, wrapped it in a plastic bag and hit it with a hammer. The hammer bounced! I kept hitting the bottle trying to shatter it into pieces (so I could at least practice smoothing and shaping the pieces). However the bottle would not break!

I have a glass cutting tool that I haven't really tried yet. It is a small handheld tool with a cutting wheel on one end. The tool is supposed to score the glass and allow you to break pieces off. I'm not sure that it was designed for cutting wine bottles... but it's the best option right now. I have seen tools sold online that are specifically made for cutting the tops off of wine bottles to make them into drinking glasses. I may purchase one and see if it will be useful.

Wine bottles come in several different colors- clear, green, blue, brown and of course blue-green. Some of the shades are really beautiful and I am excited to incorporate them into new jewelry designs... if I can figure out how to break them into pieces!