Crafting Around the Holidays

I always enjoy the winter holidays. The idea of spending time indoors with family and friends, while it's cold outside, has always appealled to me. Snow in the trees and on the ground, a cup of tea or hot chocolate, sitting around a roaring fire, brings back great childhood memories.

But since I live in south NJ, near the semi-warm ocean, snow covered ground doesn't occur very often before the holidays. And being a crafter, there are lots of custom requests for potential customers, looking for the perfect handmade holiday gift.

For people who hunt sea glass, the 4th quarter of the year is busy. The chances of finding something special on the beach go way up during the colder weather. Less foot traffic, practically no beach grooming and rough winter tides, make this a special time for me (well for my hubby...it's so cold out there...lol) So I/we
hit the beach as often as possible.

Making jewelry is a bit hectic also because of the custom requests. Sea glass jewelry makers have increased doubled or tripled since I started and when speaking with other jewelry makers, I know that the custom made market is competitive... I am not the only jewelry maker being contacted. Now I have to factor prices and my competition, while making my prices competitive. Or I could have a piece of jewelry on my hands that I maybe wouldn't have made.

So, the holiday season has begun for the shoppers. I already see a large uptick in "foot-traffic" in my Etsy shop. In the past 10-14 days, I sold 3 items on Etsy and I've received a custom request through another blog.

The idea of doing a holiday show has crossed my mind and while it would probably be a very good opportunity for me to get myself and my jewelry back in the public's eye, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of preparation it would take for me to be comfortable with my inventory, I could easily double the number of items in my Etsy shop (if i could ever have a day off to take pictures when it wasn't raining or freezing out)
But double the number of items wouldn't come close to being what I am comfortable with at a show... so I think, a show may be a bit too much at this time.

So while I contemplate the show idea and the days tick off the calendar, I have been going through my sea glass. Playing around with my ocean's treasures often inspires me and I have come across some beautiful pieces of English sea glass that I will probably turn into focus pieces for my jewelry creations.

And, I have created a couple of new items and hope to add a couple more to my collection in the next day or two.... while I ponder, do I do a show or not.....

'til next time...
R

Searching for Sea Glass In October - Part1

Last week, the weather was fairly mild for mid-October, so I hit the beach in the morning a couple of days, hoping to find a few treasures. You never know what to expect at this time of the year... high tides, usually mean you will encounter many surf fisherman (and women). Low tide usually means mostly empty beaches.

On Long Beach Island, where I do the bulk of my searching, it's quite apparent that the landscape of the beaches no longer resemble what you were used to in the spring and summer seasons. The towns do not have the funds to maintain the beaches and only the threat of extremely bad weather will bring crews to the beach in hopes of saving the dunes that protect personal property.

Tire tracks cover the high tide area, so much of those treasures are either buried and/or broken under the tracks. The ocean preserves the low tide area, as the pounding waves end up creating sand barriers that separate the high and low tide areas. These barriers are actually cuts in the beach, that create a wall in the sand, sometimes only 8-12 inches high, but in other areas, the wall is actually 3 or 4 feet high!

These are great areas to search for sea glass and other treasures that the ocean has left behind, as shells, seaweed, driftwood, etc all gather at the base of the wall, waiting for the next extreme high tide to reclaim them. Or for me and the other treasure hunters to search them.

So, different landscape, much less foot traffic and somewhat better conditions for finding a few ocean treasures

I made two trips last week, one at about 8am-ish on both Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday's trip was a little too early to have the opportunity to be there for low tide. I did have the "wall" areas to search, as some of these walls were able to contain the high tide that day. And there were plenty of shell beds to look through.
Unfortunately, there were also a few different footprints near the gatherings also, so I had been beaten to the spot.

Despite getting there 2nd or 3rd or whatever, I did find several pieces of sea glass, most of which "under-cooked" and needed more time in the ocean. These were left for the next tide to reclaim to allow the ocean to do her thing- continue to breakdown the shard and return it to the sand it originated from...or hopefully place it back on the beach in the future, for me to claim and recycle, repurpose, etc.

I did find a few nothing-special browns and a green and on my return trip to my car, I was able to walk closer to the surf and examine what was being left behind. It was there that I found a soft green piece of sea glass, somewhat small, but nice thickness. Most likely, it's a piece of an old Coke bottle, but still it's was good to see that LBI could still turn out something other than new beer bottle shards.

I don't have pictures of my findings from last week yet...I'm working on them, but I hope you enjoy a few images of some current creations and recent sea glass findings. Come back tomorrow for part 2 : )

'til tomorrow...
R