Almost Wordless Wednesday ~ New Creations

3 new jewelry creations- 1 just listed in my Etsy shop and a small pile of New Jersey sea glass from my last outing...the tear-drop piece on the left is actually a soft blue and the nicest of the bunch, the bottle top is pretty old and cool also.

Sea Glass Images.... Too Pretty For Words...

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

A Few New Creations, and Shutout at the Beach...

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to sit down at my crafting table and make a few new creations. I wrapped about 8 or 9 pieces of sea glass, and added them to the small collection of pendants that I've been wrapping in my spare moments. Before I added chains to the sea glass, I spread them out for a few photos and got very lucky to shoot the above photo, just before the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

The cornflower pendant/necklace will probably make it's way into my Etsy shop later today and join the purple/amethyst necklace. The purple piece of sea glass has been in my collection for awhile. It hasn't been a piece that I displayed around my home with my other sea glass. Instead, I think I always have thought as this piece as perfect for jewelry. The images of the purple piece are not what I had hoped for, and I will definitely be adding a few new images when the sun decided to return. It's a surprisingly beautiful shard and one that will make a great summer accessory....I just wish purple was a color that looked good on me : (

My trip to the beach to hunt sea glass was a total washout. I believed I had arrived early enough, but found a beach with many footprints and very few shell beds. I guess quite a few people had the same idea I did and they all arrived first. I did find a nice little green piece that may find it's way onto one of my future bracelet or earring creations, but there was very little in the way of sea glass. I enjoyed a nice stroll on the beach, but came away empty-handed.

'til next time...

R

Warm Weather, New Sea Glass Creations and the First Consignment Opportunity of the Season....

Sixty-two degrees on the Jersey shore yesterday! If I wasn't putting the last touches on a few consignment pieces, I would have been combing the beach for sea glass... but there will plenty of hunting opportunities before the summer season starts.

Instead, I spent the day finishing up a few items for my Etsy shop and making several new pieces for a B&M shop where I'll be displaying sea glass jewelry this spring/summer. Between sessions at my crafting table, the sun peeked out from the mostly overcast skies, so I spent time alternating between creating sea glass jewelry and capturing images of finished pieces.

Some of the images on the new pieces need work and I'll need to retake some shots again, but a few of the images were acceptable and yesterday I listed my first multi-color sea glass necklace. Also known as "end of day glass", this beauty is mostly white/clear with a splash of aqua blue. It's very pretty when held to the sunlight, and this piece is very smooth and well-frosted. This perfect piece of English sea glass is listed in my shop on Etsy.

I suppose it's time to announce the first brick & mortar shop that I will be displaying my sea glass jewelry for the spring and summer months. I will have between a dozen- 2 dozen pieces of my creations at the Museum of NJ Maritime History in Beach Haven. The LBI museum is simply beautiful, with many great displays...so many in fact, that it would be impossible to really take in everything in just one visit.

There is great upside to selling my handmade sea glass jewelry on Long Beach Island and I'm thrilled to have my creations at the museum for the spring and summer. If you are on LBI for the day or on vacation, stop in at the museum...it's free of charge... and take in some of the wonderful displays and some of New Jersey's Maritime history.

The images above are a couple of my new pieces. The red will probably be heading to my Etsy shop later tonight and the English multi-color is already in my Etsy shop.

til next time...

R

A few new pieces of Hanmdade Sea Glass Jewelry

A weekend craft show and a Sunday Etsy sale left my shops a bit wiped out, so back to the crafting table I went..... well not everything is just made... I have several pieces that were works-in-progress and a bunch of items that are/were set to go on consignment... and now I need to re-stock the shops.

I still have to take photos of most of the pieces, but here are a few new pieces that will find their way into my Etsy shop this week. I also have a necklace ready to go into my Art Fire shop and I'm working on a few sets of earrings to add to all three of my CreationsByRobin shops (Etsy, Art Fire, 1000 Markets)

The Red Sea Glass necklace was added to my Etsy shop on Sunday, and the 2 blue pieces will eventually find their way into the shop...the bracelet will be listed later today.

til next time...

R

New Handmade Sea Glass Jewelry...

Getting ready for an upcoming show, putting together a line of sea glass jewelry for a summer resort area gift shop and building up some inventory for my online shops have kept me at my crafting table for much of the weekend.

I finished several pieces today, a couple that will go into my online shops and several that will go into the gift shop where I'll be displaying some of my handmade sea glass jewelry. One of the pieces is my first necklace (or any piece of jewelry) with a piece of red sea glass. The red sea glass piece is absolutely beautiful and practically flawless. It's wrapped with sterling silver wire and hangs on an 18" sterling silver chain...(Image above)

One of the other pieces I finished today was a gorgeous heart shaped sea glass necklace. The piece of sea glass is a dark cornflower blue piece that has also been wrapped with sterling silver wire and hangs on a sterling silver necklace.

These were the only 2 images I was able to photograph during a brief brightening of what was a rainy and overcast Sunday sky. Hopefully the weather will clear up a bit, so I can continue taking pictures this week.

til next time...

R