What's New in Our Etsy Shop

New in our etsy shop, this little guy is hand forged from sterling silver and hangs on a sterling silver box chain. He is a bigger version of the Strength inukshuk we have available with a little piece of sea glass. Did you know that the plural form is inuksuit? 

Etsy Atlantic Team Treasury

Beautiful job, ArtoftheMoment, on curating this etsy treasury of Atlantic Canadian artisans. And thanks for including our newly listed sea pottery jewelry set. You can see more work by Atlantic Canadians at the Etsy Atlantic team blog here.

Prisoner

I'm a prisoner in my own home. Wait, before you call the police, its self-inflicted. We are in the process of having our roof and front door replaced. No more draft leakiness. I hope. So right now its a big, loud, messy, animals hiding under the furniture because of all the banging, expensive ordeal. But when its all finished, it will be lovely. And because its the way life goes, when Keith was dragging out the Christmas boxes last night, he noticed the hot water tank was leaking. Sigh to everything happening at once. But really we're lucky we caught it before it let go. How's that for positive thinking? I'm trying here :) 

On the brighter side, here is a photo shot off our back deck last week. It was a gorgeous moonrise and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

Way more satisfying than hot water tanks and shingles.

Trans Canada Etsy Team Giveaway!

Feel like winning a gift basket overflowing with $350.00 of handmade goodness by Canadian artisans? Then hop on over to the TCET blog to find out how you can enter here. Check out the participating shops for Christmas specials, including ours:)  Buy Canadian!

English Sea Glass

One of the many reasons I love etsy. A lady from England sent  gorgeous  sea glass she had collected over the years to have necklaces made for her daughters. She wanted more than one piece of glass incorporated into the designs, and wanted the necklaces to be fairly substantial as her daughters are tall (lucky daughters).

It was fun playing with the designs and has inspired me to do more multi glass pieces for my shop. As soon as the shows are over. Thats become my new mantra, "When the shows are over". "When the shows are over",  we'll go out. "When the shows are over", I'll give the house a good cleaning. "When the shows are over", I'll be exhausted and sleep for a week.

Sea Pottery Happiness

We did Christmas at the Forum on the weekend, which was a great show. We met lots of people, sharing their sea glass stories.  One lovely lady and her daughter studied our sea pottery collection and casually mentioned that she recognized the patterns of some of our floral pieces, and that she had the china at home in her attic! The china belonged to the Victoria General Hospital, back in the day when hospitals served patients on real china and not styrofoam and plastic.  The VG has since been amalgamated into a larger Health Centre.

I was so excited that I rambled on to everyone who stopped by the booth for the rest of the day (sorry people, but thanks for listening). And thank you to the kind lady who rescued the saucers from her attic, you made my day!

Dartmouth Handcrafter's Guild

We did the Dartmouth Handcrafter's Guild show this weekend, and had a great time. Attendance was down some, likely to do with all the flu stuff, but it was a good show. Along with meeting  lots of nice people, I picked up a few Christmas gifts for my favourite people. Buy handmade everyone!

Keith made a new display for us, wire grids instead of the particle board we had been using, much more lightweight. It worked out great, except the s- hooks we were using for the pictures kept falling off when we removed a picture, or twisted up in the grid so that you had to wrestle the picture off the wall. Any suggestions for what we could use instead?

My Sweet Greens Giveaway

We're excited to be featured on Jennie's My Sweet Greens  blog, her earth friendly guide to all things green! Check out the blog for tips on how to live greener, reviews of eco friendly products and just plain good reading.

Enter her contest to win our aqua sea glass necklace, winner will be announced November 11!

Cranberry

Thank you to Splurge  for curating this striking cranberry treasury. I'll have one of everything please. Very holidays-ish, don't you think?

Grey Goose

Another gorgeous find by my parents in Cape Breton. They found a few greys this summer, rare in themselves, but this one is my favourite. Its perfectly smooth, with lots of frosting and some bubbles evident in the glass, usually indicative of hand blown or very old glass. Too beautiful a piece to cover or compete with fussy metalwork, it was drilled with simple jump ring bails and hangs on a 20" sterling silver ball chain. It was freezing cold here today, called for snow last night, but we didn't get it (thank goodness as we're in the process of having new windows installed). Sea Glass hunting days are almost over for another year. How can that be?

Iridescense

An unusal piece of sea glass that we found on a Halifax beach during the summer of 2008. The piece is dark brown, almost black with a beautiful play of iridescense on both sides. I've never found a piece quite like it. After staring at it for a year now, I'm finally ready to turn it into a necklace so it will be making its way into my etsy shop within the next few days!

Upcoming Shows

 I know, I know, its not even Halloween yet, but the Christmas craft shows are starting in just a few weeks. Which means I should be creating rather than sitting at the computer. And I will. Right after this. Or maybe tomorrow, because its late. These are the shows we're doing this season:

The Dartmouth Handcrafter's Guild,  October 30 to November 1 at the Dartmouth Sportsplex

Christmas at the Forum , November 6, 7, 8 at the Forum in Halifax

Dalplex Christmas Craft Market,  November 27, 28, 29 at Dalplex in Halifax

See you there!

Clothesline

Laundry on the clothesline makes me happy. Probably happier than it should. Fresh white sheets dried in the sun smell so wonderful. And I will have sweet dreams tonight.

Good Earth

When my husband and I are sea glass hunting, there is the slightest little bit of, ahem, competition, around who finds the best piece. If we can even agree what makes a piece "the best piece." But the day I found this piece, I won. Which isn't usually the way it goes, so let me gloat a little. The piece is quite thick, and perfectly round. When held up to the light, the glass reveals swirls of lighter green, and tiny bubbles, indicating it is very old, likely hand blown. Its bezeled in fine silver and hangs on a sterling silver box chain.

Fall

Okay, its fall.
The calender says so.
Kids are back to school.
Some evenings I smell woodsmoke in the air.
But it was 23 degrees today.
23!
Degrees!
The trees don't care, they're turning colours anyway.
My daughter brought me home this leaf at lunchtime.
Gorgeous, firey orange, screaming to be photographed with aqua glass.
So I did.
Nothing worse than screaming leaves.

Blush pink depression glass sea glass necklace

Labour of love the last few days, coaxing the piece of pink depression sea glass from Cape Breton into a necklace. The first step was to make a bezel of fine silver to fit the curves of the glass. Its quite a bit thicker on one side than the other:



Next, the bezel was soldered to silver sheet. I don't always back the pieces as some look better with the light shining through, and cuts down on the amount of silver used, but the silver behind this piece really highlights the floral pattern. Once the bezel is soldered to the sheet, the excess backing is cut away to be used in another project:


The next step was to form a bail by gently curving some silver tubing, which was then soldered to the bezel cup:


Now my favourite part, setting the sea glass. If this was a smooth, round cabachon, I would clean up the bezel cup first, sanding and polishing before setting the stone. Sea glass, with its non-uniform shape, is more challenging to set, and the bezel may be scratched, so I leave the polishing for afterward.


After some filing, sanding, and polishing, its looking more like a pendant. I slipped it on an 18" sterling silver snake chain, soldered on a clasp, and gave it 45 minutes in the tumbler with some stainless steel shot to harden the silver and give it a final polish.



Wish I knew the story behind the glass, where it was from, how it came to be in the sea. The Secret Life of Sea Glass, good title for a novel. Well, I would read it :)

Seaside Treasury

This seaside treasury was curated by Aleutie of Montreal as a tribute to Summer, calm and soothing colours.

Etsy's Handmade Moment Video Contest

Check out crankbunny's entry to the Handmade Moment video contest on etsy, its brilliant!

Inspiration

I spent a lovely afternoon with buckets of sea glass spread out all over the floor of my studio, sorting and picking out my favourites. These gorgeous pieces were all found on Cape Breton beaches by my parents. I'm most excited about the large pink piece of depression glass, its beautifully patterned and screaming to be bezeled.


I'll be busy the next few days, drilling, wrapping and soldering to get the pieces ready for my etsy shop. Bliss.

Citrus Orange

I love orange, and orange sea glass is a rarity. We found this big beautiful piece this summer on our Nova Scotia shores. I think the glass was originally the rim of a bowl or decorative plate, it is slightly ridged, although that is almost worn away. I was going to bezel it, but couldn't bear to cover up any of the glass. It is a beautiful clear day, and I'd love to hit the beach, but have to go to work at my Other Life job. Sigh.

Tea With Honey

Thanks Mirasol's Farm for curating this beautiful treasury. I am sipping tea right now. Life would be better if everyone had more tea.

The Garden

Over the last two days, I've spread 300 kg of compost in the garden. My flowers are singing. My arms are like jello. Someone I know but see infrequently drove by and stopped. Always nice to see someone you haven't seen in a year when you're wearing (and reeking of) compost. Of course, she was totally put together. But my flowers are singing.