How Difficult Is Selling Handmade Jewelry Online?

For the last few days, the topic of selling jewelry online and more specifically on Etsy.com has been thrown around in a few forums that I am part of. The question is a viable one, since there is a fair amount of investment necessary to be even remotely successful (and success is not guaranteed).

The cash investment is obvious. One needs to accumulate a great deal of components, if they are trying to make money selling jewelry online. The investment that isn't always apparent to anyone who thinks they can just jump right in and sell jewelry are often the most difficult to obtain- salesmanship, advertising and the most important, a following.

Being able to promote your creations successfully, is mostly trial and error...and let me stress the most important word...ERROR. If success is immediate, you ended up in the right place at the right time, or you have created something everyone wants (having your own niche, is great for making sales...but people will copy you when they see your success)

Advertising is not only placing ads, but creating an image that catches people's attention and makes them say, "I want that" as they reach for their credit card. Learning to take pictures and capture your creations is another work in progress. Promoting your creations via social networking is also something that takes time and often a financial investment to realize some success.

A following is not something you begin with. Your Mom, sisters and friends and other family members do not count as a following. Yes, sales to family and friends are nice, but you better have a large family and many, many friends if you plan on recouping your investment. Craft fairs are a great way to begin building a local following. Having an online presence, gives your local customers a chance to purchase from you 365/24/7 (and a chance at possibly selling your creations at a few brick and mortar establishments...but, I digress) Having an online store also opens up the opportunity for a new seller to make sales anywhere in the world.

Creating a niche within the jewelry category is always a good thing, but you sometimes tend to eliminate a good portion of potential customers depending upon your niche. The last number I heard on Etsy, was over 7 million pieces of jewelry was listed for sale. Seven Million. A niche will often separate you from the glut of jewelry, but one will have to work hard (even with a niche) to not get buried within the jewelry category.

So if you are new and looking to turn a hobby into a stream of income, welcome! You are getting involved at the height of the buying season. Just be ready to compete with a couple hundred thousand jewelry makers for the holiday bucks!!

And if you see anything you like....these are going into my Etsy shop over the next day or two.
PS- watch for a special Etsy sale code...available only to my blog followers...it should be available before Thanksgiving and run at least through Cyber-Monday

'til next time...
R

Review of the 2014 Sea Glass Festival

With this year's festival just down the road in Cape May, NJ, I just had to take the trip down the Parkway and attend the event. I was hoping to view the contest pieces for shard of the year and hopefully, run into a few sea glassing friends I had made via the internet, on forums and emails.

I did notice some complaints on Facebook, where the Saturday crowds apparently were much larger than expected and people hinted that the Convention Center was too small for such an event. I remembered the large crowds from the Lewes, Delaware event a few backs and thought how much worse could it get. The event in DE had long lines, very crowded vendor rooms, but it was spacious outside.

To put it simply, the Cape May Convention Center was not nearly large enough for the 2014 turnout. I am assuming the powers-that-be expected crowds in the 2,500-3,000 range and found the crowds to nearly double expectations. The weekend at the Cape was beautiful and the area always draws weekenders in the fall.

The town of Cape May was in full force at the event on Sunday and it seemed like everything was well organized, with the town's Mayor meeting and greeting guests and security and police presence keeping things running smoothly. The boardwalk and beach both seemed quite busy. Local shops all seemed to have a fair amount of foot traffic going in and out.

Once we were inside, we noticed the presenters were minimal, though we did speak with a couple of collectors with sea glass found in Italy, who were quite friendly and took the time to speak with all who asked questions. The vendors were located in a decent size room and with crowd control in effect, it was possible to get to the vendors tables (unlike the crowds of 4 and 5 people deep in DE). The shard of the entries were accessible and so many pieces were absolutely amazing!

By the time we arrived, in mid-afternoon, many of the vendors looked exhausted. Traffic at their tables seemed brisk and it really was impossible to stop by to introduce myself and say hi. But Kevin and I did have a chance to stop and talk with Gary of Just Beechy Keen (fantastic sea glass from Santa Cruz!) and I really loved Made by Meg's creations (and she was so sweet to everyone who stopped by her table).

The one aspect of the show that seems to have changed over the years (at least since DE) is very few vendors seem to be selling loose sea glass. I know Souris, Mary Beth and a couple of others had some loose glass, but several people were just looking to purchase a specific color, or just wanted sea glass that looks differently than the angular shards we find here on the east coast. Hint, hint vendors for 2015- loose sea glass!

Of course, all the veterans of the festival had amazing creations displayed and their tables were the most difficult to get to. Hopefully, in 2015, I will get there on Saturday and find the time to say Hi. Who knows, maybe I will even take the plunge and try to become a vendor one of these years.

A hearty well done to NASGA for another successful festival. It's never a bad thing to have to consider a bigger venue for your event. I spoke with several first time attendees who never knew anything like this existed.
Another hint for 2015...Atlantic City...I heard there are several hotels that aren't doing much there anymore.

til next time...
R

A Seaglassing Weekend

It's Labor day weekend and the east and west coasts are enduring passing hurricanes.
The surf is very rough here in New Jersey, and it's turning up the ocean floor. Rough seas, riptides, extreme tides usually equal "ocean treasure" opportunities!

On Wednesday, the shell beds on the beach stretched for nearly a block and the surf was filled with piles of shells...great for finding a few pieces of sea glass. Since Sandy tore thru the Jersey coast nearly 2 years ago, we haven't had shell beds like this on the beach, and the sea glass has all but disappeared.

But, we took advantage of the small crowds, hit the northern end of LBI and hubby and I hit the beds and found about 18 pieces of sea glass. My youngest son brought a nicely finished beer bottle top to us and found a few undercooked pieces. Hubby found a couple really nice greens and a few older browns, one looked quite old and very thick. But the biggest surprises were a few blues...one cobalt and one dark cornflower! They aren't jewelry quality, but they will look great sitting next to a window in a decorative jar.

On Thursday, we arrived at the beach and found that the tides had taken back all of the shell beds and despite a low tide approaching, she left hardly anything for us to search through. So we walked far north than we have before, to find a small area with a huge concentration of shells.

By the time we arrived, there were many people shifting thru the pile, most were looking for interesting shells, but some were searching for sea glass. Since this area was quite large, there was plenty for everyone to look thru, but most of the glass that was there seemed to have held alcohol in it recently (like maybe the night before?)For every 50 pieces we picked up, there was 1 keeper. People picked up anything they could find, calling it "sea glass", when in truth it could have been used as a weapon, or worse yet, cut a young child's foot, had they stepped on some of those shards.

The search was fruitless and I headed back, followed by my hubby and oldest son. As they made their way back, a wave washed a brown bottle top onto the surf, not more than 8 inches from my son's foot and hubby grabbed it. He almost threw it back, but said he could feel the chemical change that causes frosting. It was a good decision, because by the time he got back to our umbrella, the piece was entirely frosted, inside and out.

During the day, we did stumble upon a couple pieces of well tumbled, well-weathered sea glass, again, nothing jewelry quality, but nice for decorative displays. But as quickly as those pieces were presented to us as we walked the beach, the ocean would have just as quickly taken them back. Just as it had reclaimed it's shell beds from the day before.

Even though the ocean appeared much calmer on Thursday, the undertow was still strong and rip currents were still present. Be careful if you enter the water, especially if you are not in an area supervised by a lifeguard. Save me some sea glass and enjoy your long weekend!


'til next time...
R

Summertime Fun at the Beach

Wow, it's been quite awhile since my last blog entry...but I guess that's a good thing.
It must mean I've been spending a lot of time on the beach, doing what I love- searching for sea glass.

For those that are wondering what hunting for beach glass is about, or just looking for a fun & eco friendly summertime hobby, check out this article about what I plan on doing this summer...

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8089711/fun_in_the_sun_at_the_beach.html?cat=24

Maybe I'll see you on the beach....enjoy!

Sea Glass Collectors- A different breed...

I've been making jewelry for several years, first starting off with commercial glass beads, before I transitioned into authentic sea glass jewelry. And I have to admit, sea glass jewelry makers (and sea glassers as a whole) are a different breed.

For the most part, I have yet to meet several of the collectors /jewelry makers that I've had business transactions with, as most of these transactions have been via the internet. The same goes with many of the collectors that I've chatted with...it's almost always a internet relationship.

But in every single case, I have never come across the competitiveness that I found in several other crafting mediums. Instead, the sea glassing community seems to enjoy sharing info with fellow collectors...and a chance meeting with a fellow collector last weekend was no different.

I went to a craft fair, hoping to come across a husband and wife team of collectors. The wife, is a jewelry designer, specializing in sea glass. The husband is well known around the sea glass jewelry makers as "Bill the Drill" for his drill-press set-up, and how he has the drilling process down to a science.

I came across Bill the Drill and had my DH introduce himself and speak with Bill about his drill-press, while I spoke with his wife Virginia, about sea glass collecting, sharing secret locations, and talking about sterling silver suppliers (and of course we shared our favorite suppliers, looking to get the best price)

When I turned around to see how my DH was doing, I found Bill inviting him to sit down and drill a few holes into a piece of sea glass! How cool is that? Here's a gentleman that is sought out for his drilling expertise, allowing my hubby (who does all of my drilling for me) to try out his system...at a show!

I don't know why I'm still surprised by these occurrences with sea glass collectors, but these friendly people continue to make me happy that my family and I share the love of the ocean, and more specifically, an affection for how the ocean takes a piece of discarded man-made trash and turns it into something beautiful.

Maybe sea glass does contain magical powers...it seems that everyone that shares the love of sea glass is, well, a different breed...a very special different breed!

I Wonder What This Was In It's Previous Life?

I love playing with my sea glass. Taking out a jar or bucket and carefully spreading it out on the table. It's amazing how I can often find a piece that intrigues me...one that that I may have overlooked the last time I looked through them...or perhaps a piece that I scooped up at the beach and didn't pay much attention to when I came across it. Since DH and I are such big fans of blue sea glass, I couldn't believe that we hadn't noticed this piece before and yet somehow this piece has escaped us.

This cobalt blue piece of sea glass is quite different than any I've come across before. In the 2nd image above, there is a raised circular piece with an arrow on it (the image has been enhanced to show the arrow, thus the washed out color of blue) and the reverse (top image...this image shot through a 10x50 magnifying glass for detail...again washing out the color of the glass) shows a pattern of ooooooooo .

While this piece of sea glass will never be mistaken for jewelry quality, it did make for an interesting search for what might have this shard been before it was discarded into the sea. Being a big fan of sea glass, my interest is still piqued and if anyone knows the origin of this piece of deep cobalt blue sea glass, I'd love to hear what it may have been before the ocean got her hands on it.


'til next time...
R

PS- Yes I did a little jewelry-making this weekend also... images for my next blog entry : )

Is It Just Me or.... Recent Observations on Sea Glass Collecting....

Is it Just Me or....

Has the prices being realized on the sale of sea glass gone through the roof? The economy has been just awful and from what I've gathered, I'm not the only sea glass jewelry maker that has been experiencing slower than usual sales. So what gives with the insane recent prices?

My hubby thinks there has been a huge number of jewelry-makers that have noticed that sea glass jewelry is a niche worth looking into. He's come across several listings on eBay where the sea glass is quite questionable (disclaimer- it's sometimes very hard to tell if some shards are authentic or not...but in most cases, he believes the sellers that are 100% legit do a great job showing their offerings to be authentic sea glass...and he questions those sellers that don't take quality pictures to be those to watch out for... he feels they are hiding something...Hmmm, tumbled, craft ???)
He's also noticed some rather questionable to blatantly fake pieces of sea glass jewelry over the last 4-6 months. Since he is a huge part of my operation (the main sea glasser, hole driller and has taken over the ordering of all supplies needed for my little biz) he has started to question people as to their knowledge of sea glass, where specific pieces were found and so on. He's gone as far to tell vendors that some of the pieces they are selling shouldn't be listed as authentic sea glass, rather be called altered sea glass because they've been tumbled, treated with some sort of oil, or they are just "undercooked".

Is It Just Me or....

Is everyone selling jewelry made with "sea glass" lately? I've come across several jewelry-makers that use several different types beads as their focal piece and lo and behold, there is the odd sea glass jewelry creation.

In some cases, the vendor remembers finding the piece at the beach when they were little, or on summer vacation. The answer flows freely, and they often have a story about walking on the beach with friends or family when they came across it. Most admit to not knowing much about sea glass ... until they found sea glass jewelry online or at a craft show and realized she had a great focal piece for a jewelry creation (and could get decent $$ for it).

But others know very little about sea glass, claim to have been given it, purchased it at a yard sale (?), but most likely checked out a site like Etsy.com, saw the prices being asked for authentic sea glass and they figured no one would know the difference between tumbled glass and authentic. Perhaps I give them too much credit... in many cases it looks like the packaged "stuff" that can be purchased from their local craft store for a few dollars. Or bought a cheap lot of sea glass on eBay, not knowing what they were buying.

In almost every case, the vendor knows nothing about sea glass and often, it's the greed of the vendor that gives them away. Instead of sticking with a common color, they go for the rare Red colors (because the asking price is usually quite high compared to a Heineken green) and figure their asking price of $25 or $30 for their "authentic" Red sea glass necklace will sell immediately. After all, I always find that sea glass jewelers only have red sea glass...and nothing else.


Perhaps all of the above is due to the fact that authentic sea glass is exactly as Richard LaMotte described for his book... vanishing gems. In New Jersey, pieces wash up on the beach almost every day, but they are usually the common colors.... Budweiser browns, Heineken greens, and Corona clear. The surf here isn't rocky, nor rough, and most of the sea glass we find is not jewelry quality (but still so much fun to find!) Every so often we come across a rare color shard lying in the sand, but with the exception of a few key sea glassing days, finding those rare colors are few and far between.

Searching for sea glass has become a more popular beach-going event than tossing a frisbee. In the past few years, the amount of people who seem to be looking for sea glass has more than tripled. And with the popularity of the "Vanishing Gems" comes the perceived value...and worse, what some people will resort to, to find sea glass before others. I've watched people with nets, scooping along the shell beds in the surf, sometimes within just a foot or less of other people!

Not everything I've observed over the last few months is a negative. I have viewed several gorgeous pieces of sea glass... the owners of the shards were more than happy to show me the "gems" of their collections. I have also found some of the new sea glass jewelry makers to share the same sea glass values that I have (authentic only) and a few of them are quite talented!

No longer is the sea glass on the beach left to myself and a few other collectors. Being one of a few offering sea glass jewelry is a thing of the past also. Despite dwindling supplies, sea glass continues to move toward the mainstream and with it, the value continues to go up. ( and in the last few months, the value has sky-rocketed) But I'm always confident that there is a gem waiting for me at the beach, and as always, you can find me at the beach, looking down in hopes of finding it.

'til next time...

R

All The Leaves Are Brown & The Sky Is Gray...

Wow, the summer is almost over. The children are officially back in school as of today (I don't what I'm going to do with myself, I think, ignoring the huge pile of sea glass that needs to be drilled...lol)

With a show this coming Sunday (The Beach Plum Festival, Island Beach State Park, NJ) I guess it's time to continue to put a few more items together, finish my wine glass charms (with sea glass for the "charm", of course) and begin working on a few more bracelets and pairs of earrings. I wrapped several pieces over the weekend and asked hubby to drill a few larger pieces of sea glass so I could attach charms to them. All 15 pieces are know waiting for my order of silver chains to arrive and they finished pieces will "debut" (like people are waiting with bated breath...lol) at the show this weekend.

A couple of the pieces have already found their way into my Etsy shop and a few more will be heading into the shop during the week (images of a couple necklaces above)

The recent tropical storms seemed to have stirred up quite a bit of shells on the beach and in the shell beds in the shallow water...but the sea glass is either buried underneath (or in the sand). Hopefully, things will settle down a bit and now that the summer is over, there will be far fewer people searching for sea glass. Here's hoping the next full moon exposes some beauties that were kicked up from the ocean floor and brought in for me to find...it's been a while since I found a pretty piece of cobalt and I'd really like to make myself a necklace with a piece of LBI cobalt blue!

I'm trying to figure out how to add a slideshow to my blog...I think it's too large and I have to figure out how to reduce the parameters to fit my side panel. Hopefully for next time...

'til then,
R

New Creations, Sea Glassing Trip, weird online incidents

The creative juices were flowing in overdrive this past weekend. I was a wire wrapping fool and probably knocked out about 2 dozen pendants from Friday night to Sunday evening. My fingers, the tools, the wire and the sea glass were all in the zone and everything seemed to be going so smoothly. I'd sit at the table for awhile, look at some of my choices and the next thing I knew, I had 3 or 4 wrapped pendants.

I think what started off this flow was sitting down to work on a custom order. The customer, a sea glass collector who comes up with some beautiful sea glass on the west coast, sent me several gorgeous pieces to wrap for her. I became inspired as soon as I saw these fab pieces. I immediately sat down last weekend and wrapped 2 of the beauties...but I saved some of the best pieces for last!
The bottom image is the entire lot of wrapped sea glass...aren't they some gorgeous pieces of sea glass?? What a pleasure to work with and so very inspiring! It made my not shabby, but nearly as gorgeous selections a joy to wrap...that's the kind of "zone" I fell into all weekend long. I still have all of my wrapped pieces laying out on my work bench...just a some eye candy for me each day when I go to my crafting table.

Since the creativity was flowing, I thought Sunday would be a good day for a bit of sea glassing. It was overcast, rain in the forecast...a perfect day to find some treasures.

My hubby and I arrived at the beach around 8-ish and we were the only people out there. The groomers had been out there, but must've been called back as they only did a couple strips of beach and there were hardly any footprints. Unfortunately, there also weren't very many shell beds and high-tide the night before must have been quite calm because there was almost nothing worthwhile at the high tide line.

And then the rain came, light at first, but quickly changing to a steady, driving rain. It didn't take too long before we were drenched and the lack of sea glass on the empty beach made things even more depressing. I did come across a couple shells that I'll drill and polish for some future creation and I also found a small bone .... well it was from a rather large fish and it seemed quite old. We've found these types of bones before and they do wash up from time to time, so we left this one behind for some one else to "find"...unless maybe the ocean reclaimed it later that day during the next high tide.

Strange online findings.... okay, this one was so strange, but it gave me one of those "what the hell" faces.
I was checking out my site stats and someone googled "how to polish sharp edges on sea glass" and somehow found my shop...and then they proceeded to spend a great deal of time there, looking at 39 pages (I only had 17 items listed). I thought it to be quite strange... I only use authentic sea glass and I usually don't have sharp edges in my creations...the sharp edged pieces only make it to my decorative jars or maybe a mosaic creation.
Could it be they really like my creations enough to average viewing each listing more than 2x each?

'til next time...

R

Old Ideas Equal New Creations....

In my last update on this blog, I mentioned that I was planning on taking some old ideas and turning them into new creations. Since this past weekend's weather made it hard to plan outings in advance, I found time to get to my crafting table to plot & scheme and I came up with plans for a few sea glass mobiles.

I also finally got around to making a few pictures using sea glass and as soon as I clear out all of the vacation photos from my memory card, I'll add take pictures of the sailboat picture and the dragonfly picture (the dragonfly was pieced together oh, about 14 or 15 months ago..lol... and now she's finally in a frame)

I have a few more plans to execute by the middle of September and a lot more creating to do by then. DH doesn't know it yet, but he has a whole bunch of sea glass waiting for holes and if I get a chance today, I'm going to add more to his "to drill list" : )

Oh yea, I also created a few more piece of sea glass jewelry... the images above are a couple of the creations I was able to capture images of before the skies became overcast. The purple sea glass necklace is just gorgeous and the image does the shard little justice...it's currently on Etsy and the olive sea glass w/seahorse charm will go into my Etsy shop later today.

Hopefully I'll have some images of the sea glass mosaics for the next update.

'til next time...

R

New Summer Sea Glass Creations, Craft Show Schedule....

I've been off from the J-O-B for the last two days, so I used my little "mini-vacation" to straighten up my craft table and do a little creating to build up my inventory for June & July craft shows.
The images above are a couple of my newest items (both are in my Etsy shop) and I'll be adding a couple more into both my ArtFire and Etsy shops over the next couple of days.

I even snuck out of the house and made a trip to AC Moore this afternoon...and found a couple items I've been looking for online, but unable to find. Finding those components will allow me to place my online orders for drill bits, and a bunch of sterling silver (wires, necklaces, bracelets, head pins, etc).

So my "summer circuit" craft show season is under way. I had a fun time at the Barnegat Bay Festival and was excited by both the amount of traffic at the show and the number of people that were buying and/or very, very interested in my sea glass jewelry. I handed out a lot of business cards and had quite a few people asking me what shows I'm doing next.

My summer shows (for my followers that prefer not to shop online)
June 13th- The Field Dog Expo on Mt. Holly Rd. in Medford, NJ. Looking at all the activities they are planning for this show, it looks to be a fun, family festival. Lots of things to keep the children occupied, plenty of puppies and of course, a handmade craft fair with a few EtsyNJ members attending.

July 11th- OM Baby, Pt. Pleasant, NJ- another EtsyNJ event. It seems like about 20-25+ EtsyNJers will appear at the OM Baby Yoga studio for the 2009 spring version of this event. It's in a great area, many wonderful shops nearby and of course, the Pt. Pleasant beach and boardwalk.

July 18th- The 2nd annual spring edition of The Handmade Faire. This year's spring event will be held in Freedom Park, in Medford, NJ. The show is juried, (I'm still pending and crossing my fingers to be accepted) and one of our EtsyNJ team leaders, organizes this event. The first annual spring and fall events were outstanding... the high quality of handmade crafters made these shows the best in Central/Southern NJ and perhaps the best throughout the state (they were by far the best handmade show I've ever attended) I'm really looking forward to this show, and hope to be selected (emails to AbbieRoad of Etsy requesting my presence are appreciated... lol)

August 1- The Lacey Crabfest & Craftshow- I don't remember how many years the Crabfest has been held, (I know it's more than a dozen) but the CraftShow is in it's 9th year. The event attracted several hundred people last year despite a hard early morning shower and even with a slow start, the show was a success for me. Another fun show that attracted a handful of EtsyNJ members (which always makes a show a good time)

Hopefully somewhere in the mix, we'll get the first handmade craft show at the Nautical Museum in Beach haven on LBI (probably the 2nd or 3rd weekend in August)

That's it...a busy summer, squeeze in a vacation and a few trips to the beach and it's almost Labor day by the time the smoke clears : (

til next time...

R

The Sea Glass Generation

This has been a blog post that's been on the back-burner for several weeks and I found some inspiration to finish the post from a sea glass collector's group I belong to. The title to this thread is borrowed from one the members of this very knowledgeable group of collectors. So before I continue, I'd like to credit Krista's Kiln with the title for this blog.

This blog is one for those that know the thrill of finding one of the ocean's brilliant gems lying in the sun on the beach....

A couple of months ago, my hubby was searching the beach for sea glass when he came across a fairly large shell bed that was left behind by high tide. Shell beds like these are often contain many treasures for sea glass collectors and I've spent 30-45 minutes combing through the piles picking out some of the nicest pieces, and sometimes leaving other pieces behind for the next passerby.

While going through the pile my hubby found, he came across a few unfinished pieces (or under-cooked, as he and other collectors like to refer to them) a small handful of smaller to medium sized frosty pieces and a few slivers. Two of the three slivers were of one of the more sought-after colors, cobalt, and they were pretty well weathered. And it's these barely-there slivers that inspired this blog post...and it's one that leads to a sad realization for sea glass collectors.

As the discarded bottles tumble around in the surf, they break into shards and the combo of sea and surf work their magic. Chemicals are leeched out of the glass, smaller pieces break off, shards become smaller. After all glass is made from sand, so it's only natural that they return from where they once came.

As the years go by, the pieces tumbling around in the sea become smaller and smaller until they will on day be too small to see...and since we no longer make the amount of glass we once did, these ocean treasures are vanishing...vanishing in our lifetime.

This makes me wonder if my children will have the opportunity to share beachcombing with their children as we have with them? Or will my son's generation be among the final sea glass generations?

So going forward, I won't leave behind any finished pieces on the beach for the chance that someone else may find it. For if they don't the tide surely will reclaim it's treasure and subject it to more tumbling, perhaps years of tumbling, until it reduces the shard back to the granules of sand it once had been.

But don't think that I'm greedy because I did my best to pick up all the finished pieces of sea glass. I love giving pieces of sea glass away to people who obviously are looking for a piece of our maritime history... there is nothing like handing a piece of sea glass to a youngster and introducing them the hobby I have such passion for... at the same time, I'm expanding the future generation of sea glass collectors and hoping to keep the hobby alive.

After all, it is a hobby that will one day grind to an end, but hopefully not too soon...

'til next time...
R

First on the Beach?? Beachcombing at Low Tide

My hubby set the alarm for 5am to do a bit of beachcombing this morning. His game plan was to hit the beach shortly before sunrise and be first on the beach. With low tide peaking somewhere between 5: 30 and 5:55 this morning, he grabbed a quick cup of coffee for the ride, bundled up and made his trek to the beach. The temperature when he left was 33 degrees and with a 10-10mph wind out of the chilly west, the wind chill hovered around 20 degrees.

His hope was to be first on the beach, but he quickly realized when he got to his favorite spot, that someone had beat him to the high tide line. He surmised that a couple people walking a dog had walked along the what the high tide left behind and shockingly, what looked to be a women's footprint was in the sand... yes a FOOTPRINT... not shoe print, but a bare naked foot!

The winds made for a brutal 20-30 minutes on the beach and by the time my hubby decided to call it a morning, his feet were very cold (and he was wearing heavy wool socks and insulated boots) The wind was finding any little opening and quickly getting to his skin.

So besides getting a chance to watch another glorious sunrise (which he says somehow warms him up ...if only for a couple of minutes) he noticed thousands of crab shells and crab legs all over the beach. The gulls must have had some feast earlier that morning!

He did come across a couple of decent green pieces... possibly jewelry quality, and a few small pieces that will go into one of our display glasses/jars. Plus he took several pictures of the sunrise.

If you take a look at the ocean, you can see why our sea glass is rarely jewelry quality... a flat sea with no rocky areas... that often equals triangular and square pieces, rather than the round, well tumbled and sometimes flawless pieces found on the islands and the west coast.

Oh well, he said he's gonna try the beach again later this week, probably on Thursday or Friday, when low tide is closer to 10 & 11 in the morning.

til next time...

R