Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign - sea glass jewelry and necklaces

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign - sea glass jewelry and necklaces

Collecting Sea Glass for Sea Glass Jewely

In order to make sea glass Jewelry, my sister Shirley, and I have to collect the sea glass. Makes sense, right? We do not order sea glass from sellers on ebay or other sites because we use only surf tumbles glass not glass created in a tumbler. We hand pick the glass from beaches that range from Oregon coast all the way down to the beaches of Mexico. Mazatlan is one of our favorite beaches in Mexico like in the shot below.

You're probably thinking that beach looks pretty bare. You're right. At the time this photo was taken the tide was coming in and all the rock spots where we might find sea glass were covered with water. Low tide is the best time to look for sea glass as you walk along the beach. Sometimes, you will find sea glass higher on the beach, but not as often. The winds and tides play an important role in whether you will be successful in your search for sea glass. We love to beachcomb after a storm at low tide. We check tide tables and usually go on the hunt during the low tides on a normal day. Not every beach will have sea glass or at least not all the time. Again, tides and times of year and also the underwater terrain of a beach will determine what is thrown up on any given beach. For example, a beach that is like a cove and sheltered by a reef might not have any sea glass as nothing gets past the reef. Also there are beaches in California where the city cleans the beaches everyday with machines. The machines are like giant vaccum cleaners and they scoop up everything including sea glass.
This shot of Steve and our dog Dylan was taken at the Salton Sea. Great expanse of sandy beach, but no sea glass as this beach was created by the sea becoming trapped inland. You can read more about the Salton Sea at http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/salton/PeriscopeSaltonSea.html
Really an interesting place to visit - just no sea glass.


One of the best beaches, I've ever been to for finding sea glass is in Fort Bragg - the glass beach. Years ago, people dumped their trash into the ocean and over the years the glass tumbled in the surf eventually depositing on stretches of Fort Bragg beaches. To learn more about Fort Bragg and glass beach you can go to http://www.mendocino.com/?id=257 or you might want to go to Captain Cass's website as he is the local authority on glass beach http://glassbeachjewelry.com/
There will be a sea glass festival this year at Capt. Cass's sea glass museum May 27-28. And we'll be there too as well as other sea glass jewelers and vendors.



If you want a listing of good sea glass hunting beaches you can visit
http://seaglasslovers.ning.com/ This is a fun site where collectors show off their sea glass treasures and discuss the "ins and outs" of collecting. You don't have to be a member to peruse their web pages. And there is also the North American Sea Glass Association where you will find excellent material on sea glass. (When we first started doing our sea glass jewelry, I was so surprised to find the NASeaglassAssociation - who knew collecting was so big!) http://seaglassassociation.org/

Collecting sea glass is fun. You don't have to make sea glass jewelry to collect sea glass, you can display it in a bowl or create a display with the glass like I did with this candle holder.

So the next time you go to the beach look for sea glass and collect some Mermaid Tears. To see some of our sea glass jewelry pieces please visit our Etsy shop at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ or you can visit us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sbrin1#!/pages/Sisters-Jewelry-Design/328818121698

Cayucos Sea Glass Festival

One week ago today, on Friday, we left Palm Springs and headed up north to Cayucos to a sea glass festival. We stopped in Solvang to leave Dylan at my sister Julia's house. Needless to say, Dylan wasn't happy. It was another two hour drive to Cayucos which is just north of Morro Bay. It was a gorgeous day and I loved looking out the window at the ocean.. I wanted to stop at all the beaches and look for sea glass, but we were on a deadline as the Festival organizers were having a 5 o'clock appetizer mixer for all the sea glass vendors.



Finally, we reached Cayucos, a sleepy beach town. Checked into an old beach motel and I mean old. The motel is called Estero Bay Motel.











Luckily for us, the motel was really clean and the shower was hot - two important ingredients in a cheap hotel. There are other nicer and more expensive hotels in Cayucos like this one we saw later from the beach. But hey, we were in Cayucos to sell our jewelry, make some money not spend it all on sleeping. I do recommend the Estero Bay Motel because it was inexpensive at $152 for two nights including tax.
After registering at the motel, we headed for the beach to stretch our legs and yes, look for some beach glass. Cayucos beach is a long wide spread of beach with rocks jutting up out of the water and houses overlooking the sand. Here are some pictures.

Looking toward the old pier, we could see the Veteran's Hall - the site of the sea glass Festival. We had an hour before the mixer, so we headed over to the hall to set up some of our displays.

















A lovely sculpture of two dolphins stands outside the hall. The tables and table cloths were provided and vendors supplied their own displays for the tables.

I think there were twenty- three vendors selling sea glass jewelry, sea glass books, mosaics, wind chimes etc. - all things sea glass. We got our stands up quickly and it still wasn't time for the mixer, so we walked down the block and where I thought we could buy coffees. We passed a historic house which was quite pretty. I think it is now a bed and breakfast, but not sure. I did see a restaurant dinner menu on a sign. Anyway, past the old house was a cookie factory called Brown Butter Cookie Company, started by two sisters, just like our company of Sisters Jewelry Design, where they sell the most delicious cookies. Their signature cookie is a brown butter cookie sprinkled with sea salt and it is to die for (later we found some in our vendor gift bags from the festival organizers.) You can order these cookies on their website at http://www.brownbuttercookies.com/

We went back to the Veteran's Hall for the mixer and had some great appetizers and talked with fellow sea glass vendors. It was fun. Then it was off to crash at the motel. I get nervous about sale day so I went to bed early and woke up every two hours all night long afraid the alarm won't work. I usually set the alarm and Steve's phone so it's not like one won't work, but nerves set in anyway. Up and dressed by seven, we drove the one street town and found a little coffee shop. Got two lattes and some scones and headed off to finish setting up the jewelry.

In this first shot, you can see our friends Gary and Kira setting up their tables next to us. Gary is a silversmith and his work is just amazing. You can see his sea glass jewelry at their website http://www.theglasscrafter.com/ Take a look, his work is beautiful and unique. Kira, is a graphic artist and she has recently designed sea glass puzzles as well as a sea glass calendar. So check out their website.

Gary and Kira - hamming it up for the camera.

Another shot of the set up. We had an L shaped table near the front of the hall. The doors opened at 10 and the crowd rushed in. The sea glass festival was so successful that people waited in line outside for 45 minutes just to get in. The last customer came through the doors at 4:00. We were so busy, we didn't even have time for lunch which was great. We sold sea glass jewelry like crazy and met a lot of nice people.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get shots of the other vendors or their cards - we were so busy. But I do want to mention Krista Hammond - her work is absolutely great and can be seen on her website at http://santacruzseaglass.com/ Krista is also the creator and driving force behind the sea glass festival in Santa Cruz. Go to her website, you'll love it. We did the Santa Cruz festival last November and had a great time. In fact, it was at the Santa Cruz festival that we met Kiki, Catherine Kornreich, who was involved in setting up the Cayucos Sea Glass festival. This was the first Cayucos Sea Glass Festival and Kiki was one of the main people behind the festival.

On the left is Sandy, then Laila Kollmann, another main creator of the festival and Kiki, Catherine Kornreich. These women and others did an amazing job of creating a great event for sea glass sellers and sea glass lovers alike. And yes, according to Kiki, there will be another Cayucos Sea Glass Festival, so if you missed this one, you can come next year.

When the festival was over, we packed up, said our good byes and went out to dinner with our friends. It was a successful weekend and a fun one too. And as always, our favorite part of any sea glass festival, is when we have time to walk the beach. See our sea glass jewelry on Etsy at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Fort Bragg Festival - Part Three

The sea glass festival started on Saturday with the hours of 10-5. We already knew where the sea glass museum was so we headed over there about nine to set up our tables and little canopy. (Note - the museum is only 1 mile from center of Fort Bragg. In an earlier post I'd said 11 miles which was my mistake.) My sister, Shirley was still sick as a dog and couldn't get out of the bed so we left her at the motel. Her husband, Pat, came with us to help set up. When there are three people helping set up it goes pretty quickly. First, the canopy has to be unfurled and erected. You have to watch out for fingers when pushing the poles up into position. When I've seen others erect their tents it always looks so easy, but for some reason I always find it clumsy and difficult - ditto with the tables that have those fold out legs that can be treacherous - at least to me, anyway. Okay, so I'm not mechanically inclined, all right. I couldn't go do a show by myself unless I just threw out a cloth and laid the treasures on the ground. Moving on, after the tables, we put on the cloths then set out the jewelry. Every time, the display changes as we haven't finalized a "look," not that I'm sure you can have an elegant "look" when you need to put lots of pieces on display. This is an area that Shirley and I go round on because she wants elegant and I want everything to be out so people have a bigger selection. So far, no one has prevailed in this argument. I understand what Shirley wants, but we're in a canopy with folding tables and I just want to sell our jewelry. Anyone with ideas is welcome to comment with suggestions.
So here is the table display at Fort Bragg. Note the front table higher than the sides, this was one of Shirley's additions as she'd bought table leg extenders to raise the front table. Hmmm? What do you think? Personally, I think the table cloth on the front table looks a bit big and messy. Here are some other shots of the display area.

We already knew that there would only be three of us vendors. We were the first to arrive and Captain Cass, who owns the museum, showed us where to park and place our display. As we were laying out the jewelry the other two vendors arrived. First to show up was Kira and Gary Ruvo. They were friends of Capt. Cass and have some of their jewelry in the museum. Gary is a silversmith and his work is really awesome. His wife, Kira, sells the jewelry and finds the sea glass on the beaches in Northern California. You can find Gary's website at http://www.theglasscrafter.com/ Here are a few shots of their display area -

Gary and Kira's display involved using glass boxes that hold their jewelry. The boxes look elegant and show off the pieces of sea glass jewelry, but Kira would have to open each glass box everytime someone wanted to see a piece of sea glass jewelry. On one hand, this sort of display really draws in the customer and enables the seller to deal really closely with the buyer. The downside is that customers can't handle the sea glass at will. The cases at a busy festival are great because they discourage stealing when you can't watch all your customers at the same time. Pros and cons to our set up and theirs. I really like the look of their displays and of course, my sister Shirley likes that the displays were elegant looking.

The third vendor was Tammy Davis. She lives in Fort Bragg and sells sea glass jewelry, jewelry grade sea glass in bulk, and sun catchers and more. You can find her website at http://www.mendocoasttreasures.com/ Here are a few shots of her display area:

Tammy didn't use a canopy and her approach to display is more casual and it works. Note, the wooden box holding earrings and pendants and also the rack. Tammy had an array of items displaying sea glass and I loved her little basket necklaces with sea glass inside and her fun leather and sea glass animal collars.

As you can see there were three very different approaches to displaying our sea glass jewelry and they all worked. We all sold pieces to the customers who arrived throughout the day. Captain Cass was also selling sea glass jewelry and art inside the museum. To see his work, please go to his website at http://www.glassbeachjewelry.com/

We had a lot of fun at the festival, met some nice people, collected sea glass on the beach and ate some great meals in local restaurants. Did we get rich? No, we didn't break even, but hey, it was a mini vacation where we made a bit of money, spent time with family and had a whole lot of fun. And looking at the photos now of the displays while writing this blog, I see that we still are on the learning curve of what kind of display is best.

Fort Bragg Sea Glass Festival - Part Two

In the last post, we left off as we were walking the path to the beach in Fort Bragg. The path forked and not knowing which path led to the famous Glass Beach we decided to go right. This path ended in a patch of pink blooming ice plant and a glorious view of the coastline. You will note the rocky landscape in the above picture. I was surprised as most of the beaches I'd been to were easily accessible.
There was nothing to do but hike on down to the beach.

Here I am looking a bit unsure of the climb. But it turned out to be a gentle hike down through sand and rocks to the beach.

I don't know what I'm thinking here, except that my husband can stop taking my picture so I can look for sea glass. It was a negative tide so I started off toward the water. Almost immediately, I found sea glass. I was in heaven. It seemed that everywhere I looked there was sea glass. Most of the glass was tiny, but I didn't care. I lost track of time, as I looked for pieces of glass. There was a lot of white, green and brown glass which is natural as they are the most common colors. What was unusual about Fort Bragg sea glass as compared to Mazatlan sea glass is that Bragg's glass is much thicker and I'd guess older. The texture and frosting was delightful. As I moved closer to the water I found larger deposits of sea glass. As you can see in the next picture the glass was as thick as gravel on a road. Later, when I talked to Captain Cass, who owns the Sea Glass Museum, I'd learn that I wasn't even on Glass Beach - I was north of Glass Beach because I'd gone right instead of straight on the path. Oh, well, at that moment, I didn't know any better and I was happy as a clam to do my beachcombing. Steve and I stayed on the beach for a couple of hours then we had to return to the motel where my sister Julia and her husband Gary were waiting for us. Julia and Gary had come to Fort Bragg to spend time with us all and Friday was the only day we could do things together. I wanted to stay on the beach all day, but hey, sometimes you have to be a team player, right? My other sister, Shirley, partner in Sisters Jewelry Design, had arrived the night before with her husband Pat and become suddenly ill with the stomach flu. She loves beachcombing as much as I and for her not to get out of bed, I knew she was really sick. I was hoping it would be a one day illness as this was a free day, but tomorrow we'd be selling our jewelry at the Sea Glass Festival. I had my fingers crossed that Shirley would recover.

This is a picture of Julia and Gary at a restaurant, we'd gone to the night before down at the wharf.

Anyway, we went back to the motel, checked on Shirley, she was sick, sick, sick. Pat was going for a two hour bike ride and we decided to go with Julia and Gary first to a botanical garden, then we planned on locating the sea glass museum so we'd know where to set up our tent for the festival.
At 18220 North Highway One, is the Mendocino-Coast Botanical Gardens. They are really magnificent and worth a visit if you are in the area. You can visist their website http://www.gardenbythesea.org/ to learn more about the gardens. There are incredible rhododendrums twenty feet tall and amazing sculptures by California artists. There are 46 acres of trails and gardens so you can spend a lot of time just wandering around. Here are some of the pictures we took of garden as we walked out toward to the coastline.

First view of entering the gardens. Following are all pictures taken in the botanical garden.

Julia and my husband Steve stand by one of the many garden sculptures. Here is another shot of the glass sculpture. Some amazing photos of flowers in the park taken by my sister Julia.

As we walked through the park and walked and walked, I coughed and blew my nose constantly. My headached and I wished I was back at the motel in the bed, but I hadn't seen my sister Julia in a long time and I wanted to spend time with her so I gutted it out. I must say when we reached the end of the gardens at the ocean it was well worth the walk as the view was gorgeous - inspiring to say the least.

After we left the botanical gardens we drove a few blocks south on Highway 1 and turned into the spacious driveway of the Sea Glass Gallery & Museum. The exact address of the museum is 17801 N. Hwy 1, just 11 miles south of Fort Bragg. The museum is open daily from 10 to 5 with free admission. Be sure to talk to Captain Cass who owns the museum. His website can be found at http://glassbeachjewelry.com/

Cass is a wealth of information on sea glass and the beaches surrounding Fort Bragg. You can also pick up one of Capt. Cass' Glass Beach Guides and Map. I was beginning to love maps after the fiasco in San Francisco. From Cass and his map, I learned that I'd gone to one of the newer glass beaches I should have gone straight on the path then left. Fort Bragg has three glass beaches - each site was once a dumping area for the town. The oldest site, 1906-1943, is hard to reach without a kayak. When a dump area filled up, the townspeople would move further down the coast. The second oldest site, 1943-1947, is off the Old GP Mill Site and it has a "No Trespassing warning" - people still climb down the rocks and kayak around to this site. Not me, as I don't have a wet suit and I don't kayak. You can contact Captain Cass as he offers ocean kayak tours to this site weather permitting. Then there is Slag Pile Cove, 1949-1967 and Glass Beach 1949-1967. Suddenly, I couldn't wait to get back to the beach and find the older site.

After getting the information about where to set up for the festival the next day, we headed off for lunch down at the wharf. A quick sandwich, then a stop at a bakery for cookies. At the motel, Shirley was still sick as a dog. Julia and Gary wanted to go up the coast to see the seals lying on rocks.

I wanted to go to the beach, but the tide was coming in and my head was pounding so I went to lie down. Took some aspirin, but couldn't relax, the beach was calling my name. Finally, I got up, coaxed Steve into going and stopped to get Shirley's husband Pat. We drove down, parked and walked the path to the end where land dropped off to rocky cliffs. Then we had to follow a narrow path to where we could drop down into the rocks. (the path was like a ledge of dirt over hanging a cliff!) Yikes, I was glad I was wearing tennis shoes. Finally, we made it down onto the sand - well, you really couldn't see much sand it was all sea glass. Sea glass in layers and layers. We'd hit the "mother lode." We stayed until it was dusk picking up sea glass. I found some beautiful pieces. When they finally dragged me away from the beach I thought I'd go collapse on the bed as I was still sick and coughing like a maniac, but when we got to the motel, my brother Marty was there. Marty had ridden his Harley down from Oregon to see us all. A family reunion, so of course, I stayed up and talked with my brother. We went to dinner and then all talked some more. Poor Shirley couldn't even leave the bed she was still so sick. Here's a shot of my brother Marty on the left, my husband Steve and my brother-in-law Pat. I think they were having a "happy hour." We made an early night of it as we had to set up our jewelry booth at eight in the morning at the Sea Glass Festival. Cass had told me when I'd talked to him that some of the vendors weren't coming - in fact, there would only be three of us. I went to bed worrying about the festival - would anyone come? Would we sell any jewelry? Would Shirley still be sick and not able to help me?

Find out in Part Three what happens.