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

More Changes to the Beach, New Sea Glass Creations

Each of the last couple of trips to the beach have revealed completely different beach-scapes. Some of the local towns on LBI have been adding/moving quite a bit of sand. The sand buildup is very necessary to keep the surf off of the dunes, which protect ocean front homes.

However, for the beachcombers that frequent the area, it becomes quite frustrating. The shell beds that are often left behind by the high tides, are often buried under imported sand... and buried with the shells are the sea glass that washed up with them.

Since late last summer, I've noticed, as have others, that the shell beds that were normally be found on the beach in the winter months are no longer found on the beach. The lack of shell beds on the beach has made sea glass quite scarce. Unless you can get to the beach at low tide, and are lucky enough to find the low tide is extreme enough to expose shell or stone beds, you may find a few pieces of sea glass.

My best outing of the winter was the perigean spring tides back in November, when an extreme low tide exposed a twenty- thirty foot shell bed where several pieces of sea glass lay waiting for me.

As the waves slowly rolled in, the beds shifted and further exposed a few more ocean gems. After about 30 minutes, the shell bed was cleaned out and a quick walk for a few blocks in each direction proved a waste of time (well almost a waste, a pretty cobalt blue tiny shard was found a couple blocks down)

The extreme low tide proved worthwhile for 2 straight days. Low tide the next afternoon yielded another handful of sea glass, but the tide came near sunset and battling a cold day and stronger wind wasn't much fun (at least at that time... I've been on the beach many times since in brutal weather conditions and came home practically empty-handed)

Since that bountiful 2 day haul, this winter hasn't yielded that many pieces combined. I know there gems are out there... whether they are buried by the beach construction or sitting farther out in the surf. There may not be as many left out there, but they're out there... : )


Two new sea glass necklaces should be making an appearance in my shops later tonight or tomorrow. The first is a greenish-blue piece that has me searching my "Pure Sea Glass" book
for the name of the color. It's not quite teal, but calling it a green doesn't do this ocean gem justice.

The second piece is a light green piece with a yellow-ish tinge. It looks like it could be depression glass and does take on a brilliant bright green when held under a black light. This UV piece of sea glass has been wire wrapped and made into a necklace... it's a great piece for someone that does a lot of clubbing where the lighting will certainly change the look of the sea glass.

The sun is out today, but it's only 29 degrees... too cold to hit the beach for pictures and beachcombing...but I plan on getting some indoor pictures later today when the sun moves into a better position. Hopefully I'll have images to add later!

til next time...
R