Inspiration

How do I get through winter? If there was a hibernation option, I would take it. I can't tell you how good it feels to be back on the beaches, warm sun on my skin, hair whipping about my face, icey cold saltwater on my toes.

And sea glass hunting.  Spring is always the best time, gathering the baubles that winter storms have laid bare. My kitchen counter is spread with my favourite finds over the last two weeks. I want to admire them for as long as possible before they are added to the collection or made into jewelry. But I guess its time to clear the counter. Keith was away for work this week, and made the comment that the glass thats there now looks like the same glass that was there when he left, only more of it. Um, well, yeah. But I fed the kids when you were gone. Really, I did.

A few of my favourite pieces. The smallest red piece has the markings characteristic of a tail light from an antique car. The pottery piece with "Nordic blue" on it is patterned on both sides, here's the other side:

 

Beautiful, isn't it? I will have a good week creating.

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!

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!

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.

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.

Little Sea Creature

The newest addition to our Little Sea Creature necklaces, our aqua jellyfish. The sea glass used in the piece is quite thick and you can see little bubbles in the glass, which usually means that the piece is very old, before glass was mass produced. One of my favourite things about making jewelry with sea glass is resusing what was once discarded material, and giving it new life. He'll be joining the rest of his family in our etsy shop and after that, who knows where he'll be off to? A well traveled jellyfish. Anyone have a wonderful idea for another sea creature to tackle?

BOTANICALS

June is one of my favourite months- our gardens, without a sign of life just a month or two ago, are green and lush, with spring flowers spilling over the grass and drinking up the rain. To celebrate, we've chosen some of our favourite pieces of sea pottery with botanical prints and adorned them with whimsical, tendril-like sterling silver bails, just in time for summer. Our botanical pieces are newly listed in our etsy shop

Home Sweet (you know the rest...)

Its always exciting to find pieces of sea pottery with images, and houses and castles are my very favourite. And bittersweet, because we're trying to sell our home right now, which isn't my favourite thing to do. It probably doesn't help that what would be a dining room (if we were civilized folk) is my studio, crammed with our sea glass finds and floating in silver dust. This piece of sea pottery is bezeled in fine silver and hangs on an 18" sterling silver snake chain. If you'd like to see more pics of this, visit the listing in our etsy shop (and buy my house please).

New in our Etsy Shop

I had fun making these rings- there's something about hammering metal that just makes a girl feel good. A set of three hammered sterling silver stacking rings, one with a bezel set piece of soft green sea pottery rescued from a Nova Scotia beach. The rings may be worn together or separately. They will fit size 7 1/2 to 8. If you'd like a set of rings in a different size or with a particular colour of sea glass, we'd be happy to do a custom order for you.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23550836