Sea Glass Jewelry - When a Plan Comes Together...

I've had a few customers/sea glass hobbyists recently ask how I can come up with some of the jewelry that I have recently created. People innocently ask if I tumble my sea glass... if the question wasn't asked so very innocently, I'd probably be offended by the question. But knowing what kind of sea glass we find here in New Jersey (very angular), I can understand the inquiry.

Very few of the local sea glass jewelry vendors have the rarer colors in their inventory. The vendors that do have pieces with extremely rare colors, often charge quite a bit because it's probably one of the only pieces of sea glass they have in there collection of that color. And since they don't know if they will ever find another piece like that, they are going to get paid when that rare piece finally sells.

Recently, I have created several pieces of jewelry with red sea glass (the 2nd rarest color of sea glass) and with so many red pieces for sale, it's hard to imagine that my family and I could have found all of these pieces at the beach...and they'd be right in thinking so.

The fact of the matter is for some of my sea glass, I have traded, bartered and made outright purchases with reputable collectors that I've known for years. And even though I have these contacts from several locations all over the world, it sometimes takes months, and even years for some of my jewelry creations to come to fruition.

The "stack" necklace of blue and white sea glass had been a work in progress for several months. The final piece, a cobalt blue piece of sea glass was found last December on LBI. I had been hoping for a deeper cornflower piece to finish the creation, but the sea glass Gods never presented me with what I was looking for.

The red sea glass earrings that I recently sold contained a red piece of sea glass that I had put aside over a year ago! When one of my sea glass friends had sea glass to trade (well, trade & sell) and it contained a couple pieces of reds, I jumped on the opportunity. It wasn't exactly the shape I was looking for, but the sea glass Gods also don't take requests for size, shade, shape... believe me, I've asked many times (regardless, the customer that purchased the earrings seemed quite happy)

I have several pieces of sea glass in various colors for future creations. They sit in small jewelry boxes on a shelf above my craft table... jewelry puzzles, waiting for a missing piece to turn up. And when one does, to this long-time sea glass collector, it's a thing of beauty.

I love it when a plan comes together!

'til next time...
R

Wordless Wednesday... Sea Glass Jewelry

Beach Plum Festival- Island Beach State Park, NJ

One of my favorite fall events, The Beach Plum Festival in Island Beach State Park, runs this Sunday, September 12th. The showers projected for Sunday appear like they will hold off until late afternoon/early evening.

Last year's festival was well-attended, as evidenced by the huge customer lines waiting to purchase jars of Beach Plum jelly (sorry, I'm already turning down orders for a jar of the unique jelly...and I'll have my DH standing in line all day to fill family orders...lol)

If you opening weekend of the NFL doesn't thrill you , and you're looking for one more day at the beach, head over to Island Beach State Park (just south of Seaside) It's a beautiful state facility with miles of gorgeous beaches. Stop by my display if you come down and say Hi!


A new payment processor is about to come on the scene and perhaps pose a challenge to Paypal, the leading online processor. The company is still in pre-launch and is offering a decent promotion for members who join. Currently PayBox is offering a $50 sign-up bonus, and offering members to voice their opinions on what we would like to see from a payment processor.

http://www.paybox.me/r/ridethewave

At this time, they aren't asking for any financial info, just a name, email address, log-in and password and your in. Attracting possible more sales with a new processor is well worth the 60 seconds it took to sign up and verify my email address. Take a look and let me know what you think. http://www.paybox.me/r/ridethewave


Hope to see you at the show!

R

Weekend Craft Fair, End of Summer ....

So another summer has come and gone, the children are back in school, and the beaches are fairly empty. Hopefully not to empty this coming Sunday...

This Sunday, September 12th, I'll be vending at the The Beach Plum Festival in Island Beach State Park. It's not very often I have the opportunity to do a show near the beach, but last year's show was so much fun. I'm very excited to be coming back again this year (I'm going to get a jar or three of Beach Plum jelly and I don't care how long I wait in line this yr...lol)

The top image is probably the most looked at piece from prior shows. I placed it in my Etsy shop earlier this morning, and it's marked down nearly 40% from it's show price. A pre-show special for my Etsy customers that are not able to attend the show. It's a very unique English sea glass necklace, and the piece has a bold red splash in the frosted white glass...a beautiful piece that has had customers coming back to my display at recent shows to look at it again and again. The current listed Etsy price will be adjusted back to full price after the show, and I will also end the Free Shipping promo that has carried over from the summer.

Last week's hurricane/tropical storm produced some beautiful surf. larger than normal waves pounded the Jersey shoreline and caused some minor erosion on LBI. Other New jersey beaches were hit much harder, so I suppose we were quite lucky.

The stronger tides failed to provide much in the way of sea glass, and most of what my family and I found were newer shards of glass that somehow found there way into the ocean. Most pieces were very sharp, and no where near close to being sea glass, so we discarded them into the recycle bins on the beach. We did find a chunkier pale blue piece of sea glass- probably from an old Coke bottle- that was well-weathered. This piece will probably become a piece of LBI sea glass necklace, and find it's way into one of the local shops that display my handmade jewelry. Hopefully this weekend will produce a couple of pretty pieces of sea glass that was stirred up by last week's storm.

If you happen to be looking for a fun event this coming Sunday, and you're in the Ocean County, NJ area, head over to Island Beach State Park. The beaches are beautiful, and I think you'll find several interesting handmade vendors displaying their creations.
I'll be in the same spot as last year (near the clubhouse)or standing in the Beach Plum jelly line...stop by and say Hi, if you have a chance!

'til next time...
R