A Day At The Beach

Red and Blue Sea Glass Earrings for the Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July!

Wow! It’s almost the Fourth of July. Makes me think of red, white and blue sea glass. I have plenty of white, a fair amount of blue and only a few pieces of red so it’s very challenging to make red, white and blue sea glass jewelry. On the Fourth I will wear the few pieces I’ve been able to make. God Bless America!

Thank you, Lenore!
We met a very nice woman at one of our Florida shows this winter and she promised to collect sea glass for us. I had forgotten all about it until one day in late April I received an email from her. She said that for the month of May she was dedicating her daily beach walks on the Maryland shore to collecting sea glass for A Day at the Beach. Then early one June morning I saw the FedEx truck coming down the hill and lo and behold the Maryland sea glass arrived, the fruits of a month’s work. Lenore had collected about 25 lbs. of sea glass for us.

Sometimes you just meet the most awesome people, especially when you discover your mutual obsession for sea glass.

Click to enlarge and see the story and Jane's Sea Glass!

Sea Glass Style
I just received my June edition of “Better Homes and Gardens,” a wonderful magazine full of easy (it has to be for me) decorating ideas. I was tickled to find two pages dedicated to decorating with soft green sea glass colors. I had just received an awesome selection of green sea glass as a gift from one of my Puerto Rico collectors so I grabbed the camera and VOILA, my very own magazine spread!

Our Sea Glass Treasures

Treasure Pile
The results of a week’s worth of work “at the beach,” four to five hours a day. One sweet lady who lives in the beach neighborhood gave us her stash and an elderly man who presides over another beach let us put our handprints in his “sea glass wall,” after we offered him some sea glass jewelry for his wife. It’s all about the journey, isn’t it?

The view from our room! Not too shabby.

RM with VU Coming from gray skies of March in the Northeast it’s joyous to see blue skies, colorful flowers and green landscape. Still winter in Bermuda but feels like summer is around the corner. An added bonus– everyone you meet nods and says, “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,” something nice for us to consider adopting.

Back breaking collecting. Poor me!

Hey it’s just a job!
As much as I hate to confess, we were able to finagle another economy trip to Bermuda (time share exchange and wonderful Delta frequent flyer miles). March is not the best time to visit if you just want sun and sand. It’s just the very beginning of the busy season. Went hunting every day, sometimes twice, enjoyed blue skies, turquoise waters, sweet smelling flowers and the most polite people on earth.

Primo Bermuda Sea Glass for "Angel" Necklaces

Organizing  Sea Glass Gems. Finding the sea glass gems to make into beautiful jewelry is absoutely the fun part of this business. Hours spent combing the beach and dodging the waves in search of the elusive piece of blue, pink or red is like a treasure hunt; you never know what will appear at any given time and it’s nothing that can be controlled. You just have to let nature take its course, deciding what to give and what to keep.

Then comes the work of washing (pretty easy, soap and water and a little white vinegar) and then sorting, sorting, more sorting…by size, shape, and color…until you come up with pieces that will work well together. Try matching up two randomly found pieces of sea glass to make a pair of earrings! It’s enough to drive a person mad.

The photo above represents my choice of some of the nicest small sea glass pieces that will someday be turned into “Angel” necklaces.

Beautiful Bermuda Sea Glass, Just Picked!

Days at the Beach! We’re just back from a week-long trip to Bermuda where we hunted for sea glass every day! This was seven straight days at the beach, rain (and it did rain!) and shine. Bermuda is a lovely island with even lovelier people. We especially want to thank our friend and fellow sea glass lover, Jenni, who was our official “guide.” One day we experienced what I dubbed “extreme” sea glass hunting as we braved the powerful surf caused by remnants of Hurricane Ida. Not for the faint of heart but we had fun nonetheless as we battled the waves for our sea glass treasures. At one point all three of us were vying against nature to capture an elusive piece of blue which I finally shagged becoming totally drenched in the process.

Finds of the trip were two bottle stoppers, a couple of awesome pink shards and quite a bit of blue. It’s tough work, but someone’s gotta do it!

Seaglass wine and sea glass

What a discovery! Just this summer we discovered this delicious Sauvignon Blanc from the Seaglass Wine Company of Santa Barbara, California. It’s been the perfect summer wine, light and fruity and with a beautiful label, which is what caught my eye during a visit to our local wine purveyor. And just over this Labor Day weekend my sister, Christine and my friend, Judy both mentioned the wine as well.

So I’ve surrounded it with some awesome sea glass that I purchased from a collector in California and took this pic. Maybe the Seaglass Wine Company would like to use it in one of their ads? Anyway, stay tuned for new pics of sea glass jewelry made with the California sea glass as well as our attempt at making two sea glass filled lamps with the bottles! Cheers!

Thick Coca-Cola shard from former military base.

A Beautiful Day! My husband insisted we embark on a sea glass hunting expedition yesterday, while I felt I should stay home and work. Boy am I happy that I went along with his program. Not only did we collect lots of beautiful glass but it was just a stellar day on the water! We boated to a couple of local islands and just wandered the shore enjoying some of the most beautiful weather of the summer. Sometimes I forget how relaxing it is just to be alone on the shore humming away and searching for treasures. The little pieces of sea glass just sparkle in the sun waiting to be picked up. We found lots of beautifully frosted pieces of the old Coca-Cola bottles that were such a part of American lives during WW2 when this island was a military sea plane base.

R I sea glass from a friend's collection!

Where is your sea glass?
Just about everyone I meet has a sea glass story to share. No matter where I go when the topic comes up (as it invariably does), the response is similar. “Oh, I used to have a whole box of sea glass but I don’t know where it is.” Or, “I love sea glass and use to collect it when I was a kid.” “My mother had a great collection, I wonder where it is?”

I’ve met people who’ve been eager to share the location of their sea glass hunting grounds and others who are very circumspect about their expeditions. (And it’s not polite to ask!) I’ve had very kind people offer to let me sort through their entire sea glass collection simply because they’d love it if I could make something beautiful from their found treasures.

Some collectors organize their glass by color and keep it in drawers; others sort it obsessively by shape and size, but most simply display their finds in a glass jar or bowl and can’t wait to show it to me! Maybe the excitement comes from the discovery and sharing of something that began as plain & ordinary and as a result of time and conditioning has evolved into a thing of wonder and beauty. It’s really so simple!