Blue Moon and A Learning Curve

Before I get started just had to share this shot of Palm Springs mountains with dusting of snow. We had a big rain storm last week and voila - snow. It is warm outside today if you're in the sun, but not warm enough to swim.

Took Dylan to the dog park where he ran around in the mud and had a great time after three days of rain and no walks. Here's a shot of Dylan lounging. And a shot of his cousin Bogey up in Oregon -

Bogey loves walking with Dylan when we are in Oregon. Black and white, the color of the dogs and my new long rope necklace of black and white beads and white sea glass which you can see more of on http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ Here's a picture to entice you to go to Etsy -

As you have already discerned this blog post is all over the board. Where's the beginning, middle, and end? I don't know, I'm in a rambling mood and trying to figure things out as I bumble around the internet today.

I titled this post Blue Moon and Learning Curve. We'll get to Blue Moon in a bit, now I want to focus on Learning Curve. Lately, everything is a learning curve for me - the jewelry, the marketing, the internet marketing etc. Designing the jewelry is really fun. Ideas just pop in my head. But once the piece is made it has to have a price point? How much should I sell it for? I try to take in the scarcity of the sea glass, the components cost and also the time it takes to make the piece. A few days ago, I started listing the sea glass rope necklaces in my Etsy store at a low price. The first one, made by Shirley, sold within the hour . Wow, that was fast. It's a gorgeous necklace, but what made is sell so fast? Was the price point too low? Thinking about it more, I realized that there is a lot of sea glass in the necklace (hard to find, and time consuming to drill all the pieces), so I adjusted the price upwards to reflect the work and components of the piece. Naturally, I should have thought this out earlier before listing, but hey, it is all a learning curve. Here is a shot of the necklace that sold so fast -

It's very pretty and can be worn in one long strand or looped over the head for a double strand look. We have other sea glass ropes on our Etsy site.

After I adjusted the prices in my Etsy store, I went on Twitter and posted a few tweets. I've been gathering followers and finding people to follow. Sometimes, I click on a person's tweet and read their tweets and even go to their websites. If I do go to the website, I'll go back to Twitter and make a comment to that specific person. Everyone is tweeting and most are tweeting about their products or businesses. I'm wondering what percentage of people on Twitter actually go and look at my store or blog? Is it worthwhile to be on Twitter? Is tweeting helping my jewelry business? All unanswered questions that bounce around in my brain. And the biggest question of all is - Am I even tweeting correctly to really interest others to stop at my store or blog?

And I'm on facebook http://www.facebook.com/sbrin1 and again, is this social networking site reaching anyone out there or is it just another place to go and post. Do people see my Facebook page? Do they click on my Etsy logo from Facebook? Are we really all connected? Again, I feel that I don't use my Facebook correctly or even know how it all works, yet I'm on there posting and sharing like crazy. Again, the learning curve comes into play. Is it for naught? I don't know.

I'm even on several nings like Handmade Artist Hangout and Seaglasslovers.com. I finally figured out if you're in one ning you have the same password for all of them! Geez, what I don't know could fill a book. It's all trial and error with me. I'm like a character in Alice in Wonderland stumbling around the ether world - bumping into this and that.

I could go on and on about the learning curve with topics like Art Fairs and Shows - what is needed, how do you get in, what kind of display do you need and so on. But I want to get to the Blue Moon part of the title - Blue Moon is the title of one of my favortie songs, I especially like how 10,000 Maniacs sing it and it is the name for my latest long rope necklace just listed in my Etsy shop

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Any suggestions or help on learning my way around the social networking sites, please email me or comment here on the blog. I need all the help I can get. In the meantime, please check out my Etsy site at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ P.S. I should have labeled this post All Over The Place, but I won't because it is too hard to redo this darn blog and get it to look right - LOL.

Quartzsite - Rock and Gem Show

We just spent two days in Quartzsite, Arizona - a dusty, flat place that has for most of the year a population of about 200 people, but in January of each year it becomes the third largest city in Arizona. January is when vendors from all over the world descend on Quartzsite to sell their wares which range from beads to bananas. There are three venues, one right in Quartzsite on the main street behind a huge metal building called Gem World, then if you go down the street and cross over the over pass you'll find two more venues which are so big all you see are tents for miles. The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells. We were looking for beads and jewels to use with our sea glass for necklaces and bracelets. There were so many bead sellers our heads were on swivels - looking, looking, looking.


There were tents and awnings and booths and some metal buildings for the big sellers. There were people selling giant slabs of rocks, crystals, marble. There were tool sellers, fashions, roots, nuts, silk, tribal treasures, jewelry, opals, paintings and more. And in the middle of all the aisles, there were food vendors selling all those greasy and inviting foods with thousands of calories like corn dogs, home made potato chips, carmel corn, burgers, lemonades, and everything fried you can imagine. We had hot dogs and fried onion rings and French fries and a stomach about 20 minutes later. When we went back the second day, we had sandwiches from a deli before hitting the vendor area. Here's Steve with a corn dog for breakfast that first day. Later, he ate a burger. What can I say? Men are always hungry.

The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells and they have had this event for 32 years at Quartzsite. Some of the events there are as follows, just in case you want to venture over there - Rock and Gem Show - January 1-10; Sell-A-Rama - January 15-24; Art & Craft Fair - January 29-February 7, 2010. If you want to visit or even sell next year you can contact the promoters at tysonwells@tds.net.

Across the highway is another venue called Rice. We didn't get over there. Shoot, two days and we didn't even see all of Tyson Wells. It was fun and exhausting and dusty. Quartzsite is the desert so it is dusty and in this area very stark. We found wonderful beads, crystals, turquoise, glass beads and more so the two day trips were a success. A two hour drive from Palm Springs so another two hours to get back home each day which was tiring. You're probably thinking why not stay over night? There is no place to stay in Quartzsite unless you have a tent or RV. We saw hundreds of trailers, rvs, tents and camping sites all full of people. But we don't camp or trailer so that's why we did the drive each day. Just a few of the beads we picked up. If you work with beads and semi-precious stones, you'll want to go to the event next year - it truly is amazing. And the prices are so low compared to sites on the internet or those large catalogue companies. Great deals and savings.

This last shot is of us - two sisters tired yet still smiling at the end of the day shopping in Quartzsite.

We love making sea glass jewelry and finding natural stones and crystals and beads to use in our necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Here are a few shots of pieces we've created with some of our finds.

Please visit our website on Etsy to purchase Sea Glass jewelry hand made by Sisters Jewelry Design - http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Why Sea Glass Jewelry?

Why did my sister and I choose to work with sea glass in creating our jewelry? First, we love sea glass - we love the look of it, the feel of it and the collecting of it.

Authentic sea glass looks almost frosty, muted because it has been in the ocean. Some pieces look frostier than others and some even look like rocks. The longer a piece of sea glass is in the water the frostier and sometimes darker it becomes. Water leeches out the lime and soda in the original piece of glass leaving sea glass with a pitted effect on the surface and the formation of tiny crystals - the frost. The leeching or hydration process is a long, slow process which is why when hunting for sea glass you will find all sorts of glass in varying stages of hydration (some pieces of glass have been in the water longer than others.) Often, when searching for sea glass you will find it sparkling in the light like a treasure waiting to be found. In this necklace there are three small sea glass stones that come from the North Coast of England. These sea glass stones are dense in color and have been in the sea for many, many years. Note how the glass is frosty and a bit pitted and so unlike the clear piece of glass it was originally.

Fake sea glass or glass that has been made to look like sea glass usually comes from a rock tumbler. You can spot fake sea glass because of the look and feel. It is has a smooth satiny feel to the touch and it does not have the little "c" shaped patterns on the surface of the glass. Sometimes, people make fake sea glass by soaking the glass in acid and then tumbling in a rock tumbler, but it still looks different from real sea glass. No one has been able to duplicate the process glass undergoes in the ocean as it tumbles in the sand and waves over time - which makes authentic sea glass so special.
Sea glass comes in a limited palette of colors because they are pieces of glass that ususally come from broken bottles. The very common colors are - white, green, brown and they can be found on beaches throughout the world. Unique colors are green, brown, and white glass that show age in that they are thick or have patterning. A little harder to find sea glass is in the colors of sea green, cobalt blue, lavender, light aqua, amber. And even harder to find are the light blue-cornflower blue, lime green, red, orange, yellow, gray, teal, pink, aqua, opaque Glass. You might also find if you're lucky pieces of glass so unique that they truly are treasure liks pattern glass, bottle stoppers, marbles, old glass tiles. I haven't been there, but I've heard on the Northern California beaches you can find rare colors because years ago glass blowers used to throw their unwanted creations in the ocean and now those mistakes are washing up on the beaches as lovely sea glass.

Collecting sea glass is so much fun. You need a beach where shells, rocks and sea glass wash up on the shore - so you need some wave activity. How will you know if a particular beach is a good place to hunt for sea glass? Most times, you won't know until you explore the beach at low tide, but there are some sites on the web that list good beaches for collecting sea glass. There is even a couple in San Francisco that will take you to hard to reach beaches that are known for their sea glass bounty. My sister Shirley and I check out every beach we visit on the West Coast and we dream of exploring European beaches. Right now, our best finds have come from the beaches in Mazatlan, Mexico. My sister has a condo on the beach in Mazatlan so we go there a few times a year and spend hours on the beach. Here are a few shots of us and our husbands scouring the beaches for sea glass. It really is like a treasure hunt.

There is no way to look pretty or graceful while collecting sea glass. Your head is down and your bottom is in the air. You will attract people who are curious as to what you are doing - it goes with the territory. Often, we found strangers starting to search for sea glass too and then giving us their finds. (Maybe, I've hit on something here for single women looking for a mate - try searching for sea glass in a bikini on a beach where there are good looking men. Okay, not a great idea, but there are stranger ways for people to meet.) Exploring for sea glass is a great exercise - the time flies by and you don't notice that you've just spent two hours walking and walking and walking (I never feel that way at the gym). Exercise and being outdoors are just two of the side benefits of collecting sea glass. There is also an almost zen like quality that comes over you as you concentrate on finding sparkling jewels in the sand - all your worries and cares are pushed from your mind.

The uniqueness of sea glass, its beauty and its mystery captured our imagination which in turn led us to think about creating sea glass jewelry as a way of preserving our memories of the sea - the romance and the mystery. Please visit our store at etsy.com to see our unique - one of a kind sea glass creations. http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Medford, Oregon - Sisters Jewelry Design Sale

Sisters - who make up Sisters Jewelry Design - left - Susannah, right - Shirley.
A little slow in getting this blog going again after summer. And here we are in November. Okay, I'm going to back track to August. We went up to Medford, Oregon where my sister Shirley lives - Shirley is the other part of Sisters Jewelry Design. We combined a visit, a vacation and a sale at her home of our combined jewelry.

Here is Shirley working hard to get ready for our jewelry show. She loves to do sterling wire wrapping around the lovely sea glass we find on the beaches of Mexico. Just two of Shirley's many sea glass wire wrapped pendants. Check out SistersJewelryDesign on Etsy.com to see more of her original designs.
Two of Shirley's friends, Mary Lou and Dottie wearing Shirley's necklace pendants of sea glass.

As you can see we have quite an assortment of sea glass pieces and styles. Each piece of sea glass is unique and created with attention to detail and an eye to fashion.





A few pictures of the lovely women who attended our first Oregon showing of our sea glass designs.
Not all of our vacation was spent selling jewelry, we also attended a small craft fair at Jack and Nancy Day's winery where we enjoyed their RoxyAnn Wine - grown and bottled in Medford, Oregon. There are a lot of vineyards and wineries in Oregon, but we think Jack and Nancy's is one of the best. Here are a few shots from the fun time at the winery and craft fair. Nancy and Jack Day.

Shirley checking out crafts - competition?

Old barn now used as a winery.

Bottles of RoxyAnn wine.

We left Shirley and Pat's house and headed up to Bend, Oregon where Steve fished and I thought about designs and wished I was at the beach. The cabin on the Rogue River is a fun place to go - too bad there is no sea glass there to collect, but hey, I shouldn't be obsessed, right?

Pictures on the Rogue River in Oregon -

Steve fishing. He'll go anywhere if he can fish. We did find a little lake with a sandy beach, but alas no sea glass. This is a shot of Twin Lakes in Oregon.
While we were at the cabin, we decided to have a jewelry show at my niece Alison's house in Bend. Only a few people came to the show, but we sold a few pieces and had a lot of fun visiting my niece and nephew Adam shown here with his fiancee Joanna. Alison is in the picture to the right at the end.

We hit up all the relatives for jewelry shows on this vacation. Even Mom, in Tigard, Oregon got roped into inviting a lot of her friends over for wine and jewelry viewing. Mom is 84 and still going strong. And yes, we gave her a necklace as a thank you for having the jewelry sale and for just being her. And a picture of Mom's garden - her pride and joy.

The Oregon trip was a success and we had a good time. What is so fun about designing jewelry is not only the creative aspect, but also the people you meet and the places you go in marketing your jewelry. We look forward to more road trips and making new friends along the way. Here are some new designs in necklaces -


Next time, we venture to Malibu, California to a friend's home for a little autumn get together and another jewelry sale.