Sisters Jewelry Design

A Surprise Benefit of Selling At Festivals

2012-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

We recently did a one day festival in Los Olivos, California which is a cute country town up near Solvang. Great little antique stores and shops and restaurants. Situated in the heart of wine country, Los Olivos is a small town worth visiting - http://www.losolivosca.com/

We didn't know quite what to expect with the street fair, but we set up our tent and jewelry displays and waited for the event to begin.

There were a few customers, mainly lookers who I call "bebacks," as that is a word one hears a lot from customers "I'll be back." Anyway, the day started off with a parade of youngsters running and then a parade of jeeps, old tractors, and square dancers. Colorful and fun.

The parade didn't last too long and when it was over, we were in the business of being street vendors. There were lots of people milling about and some came into the booth. We had a few sales and a lot of lookers.

As the day wore on, we realized that it would not be a great day for sales. I think we made expenses - cost of festival, gas, and food - but that is all. One benefit was that we'd spent the night with my sister Julia and her husband Gary in Buelton which is close to Solvang. So we'd had a fun visit and here is a picture of them.

As we were packing up at the end of the day, I was telling Steve that we could just cross "Day in the Country," Festival of Los Olivos off our list when a woman raced into our tent. She grabbed a sea glass necklace, she'd eyed earlier and asked to try it on. I helped her and got a mirror for her to look at how nice the necklace looked on her. She bought the necklace and then turned to me and introduced herself as the director of The Los Olivos Nature Museum. She explained that soon they would be moving to Solvang where they had acquired a bigger building and she wondered if we'd be interested in showing our jewelry in the museum. Naturally, I jumped at the chance and we exchanged cards and phone numbers.

Moments before the woman entered the tent, I had been bemoaning the day and suddenly, we'd made a sale and had the suprise benefit of being asked to be in a museum which was definitely a silver lining to the day. So don't despair, if you have a slow selling day at a festival, you never know who you will meet and what opportunities lay just around the corner.

Here are a couple of new pendants that we featured at the festival. The red sea glass is very rare and it is wrapped in 14kt gold filled wire.

An end of the day piece of sea glass from England wrapped in sterling wire. Note the tri levels of green.

Original Press Releases: Sea Glass Jewelry Designers Launch New Website to ...

2012-10-23T15:39:00.001-07:00

Original Press Releases: Sea Glass Jewelry Designers Launch New Website to ...: For Immediate Release | Original Press Releases A media representative for Sisters Jewelry Designs, a sea glass jewelr...

Setting Up A Booth For A Festival

2012-08-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

The first thing we do when we get to a festival is find our designated spot. Then we start hauling all our stuff to the site. We have tables, tent, jewelry displays, sign, and other things needed to make sales during the day. Oh, and a cooler with some drinks and food. (Food can be expensive at the fairs and festivals, so we try to bring our own). The above shots were taken early in the morning when we were at San Clemente for their annual beach festival.

In the picture above you can see the festival tents down on the beach where they will hold races, surfing contests and more. The vendors, like us are up on a bluff overlooking the beach - really a perfect place.

Here are a set of pictures showing Steve setting up the tent and securing it to construction bricks. We have found that one needs to have weights to attach to the tent legs to hold the tent securely in place. You never know when a strong wind might come up and want to blow the tent away - especially at the beach.

After we get the tent up and the tables in place, we set out the jewelry. Placing the jewelry and displays takes some time and we are always changing where we put things depending on table placement. So we find it takes about 2 hours to set up everything - tent to jewelry.

After we are all set up, then it is time to check out the other vendors or get coffee or just walk around as we'll be stuck in the tent once the people start coming.

Art fairs and festivals are a lot of work - setting up and tearing down after the show - packing and hauling, but they can be lots of fun too. The advantages of going to festivals is that one can show your work, get known by people, pass out cards with your business numbers and websites and of course, sell the jewelry. I like to think of ourselves as jewelry gypsies. Here are a couple pictures of some of our new sea glass jewelry pieces.

Weather Nightmare At Street Fair

2012-06-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are at another street festival - this time we were at Sunset Beach, California. I had picked this particular festival because of its proximity to the beach. Sea glass, beach glass jewelry - think beach and you get the reasoning behind my decision. If you look to the right of our sign in the picture above you will see a silver car in the distance and beyond that is a sandy path to the beach. Here is a slightly better picture.

As we set up our booth, I'm very excited. I can smell the ocean air. And I plan to walk over after we're ready to check out the beach,. Here are a few of shots of the tables set up with sea glass jewelry.

Sea Glass Nuggets Hanging on Chains

Shirley's Crochet Necklaces with Sea Glass

View of side table

View of Booth Closeup from Front

Another view

Another view with Steve in background

As you can see, a lot of our jewelry is mounted on cards and hangs on boards. Finding a great way to display our jewelry is difficult and I'll go into that in a later posting. Anyway, when the weather is great and there is no wind our displays work well. But at Sunset Beach, we learned what can happen when the wind starts to howl. In the afternoon, of the first day, a light breeze came up. As our booth was situated backing toward the beach access path, we didn't have any buildings to block the wind as it came in off the sea, this was a real problem.

The afternoon progressed and as it did, the slight breeze turned into a wind, a raging, pull your hair out, wind. All the cards on the boards went flying. The tablecloths ruffled and blew back over the tables. And finally, our whole tent began to lift off the ground. As the tent readied itself to fly away like a kite, we scrambled to save it. We didn't have strong stakes to hold down the tent, we didn't have sides or a back for the tent, so we had to lower the back legs trapping us inside. The vendor to our right, helped us tie down the back legs to his generator and we scrunched down inside to weather the wind. Needless to say, our sales fell off as no one wanted to stand in front of a booth that had the wind slapping their face. At 4:30, we started boxing and bagging our jewelry so when the fair ended at 5 we could make a hasty retreat.

As we drove home, we realized that we needed to be prepared for the wind the next day. We went to Home Depot and bought a tarp for the back end and strong steel stakes for staking down the legs of the tent. The next day we were prepared for the wind.

Shot of Booth Enclosed with Tarp

We only enclosed the back of booth

The tarp wasn't especially attractive, but it did the trick of keeping out the wind. (Right now we are looking for a more attractive covering) What the whole experience taught was to be PREPARED for all kinds of weather. Remember, if the street fair is near or at the beach, you can count on there being some breeze or wind.

You can find us at our new website http://sistersjewelrydesigns.com/ where we are always posting new designs in sea glass jewelry - necklaces, pendants, earrrings and more.

New Ice Blue Sea Glass Pendant with Mermaid Charm and Pearl

Coming soon - more adventures selling Sea glass jewelry at street fairs and art fairs.

Street Fairs - Sometimes You Lose

2012-05-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Encinitas Chamber of Commerce

On April 28, 2012, we left our house in the desert at 4:30 in the morning and drove to Encinitas, California to do a two day street fair. We had to get there early, between 6-7 am to set up our booth and then park our truck away from the venue area. Encinitas is about a two, two and half hour drive from Palm Springs. I was looking forward to the fair as it is located a few blocks from the beach and I'd never been to Encinitas. I'd picked Encinitas as one of the fairs to attend because of its beach location as we sell sea glass jewelry. I was thinking "location, location, location."

Looking right at vendors setting up

Looking left at vendors (later the street would be crowded with fair goers)

When we reached main street, I looked around and thought "what a lovely town," with its specialty store fronts and beachy atmosphere. We were told to set up our booth at space 818. This early morning setup is always fraught with difficulty of maneuvering around the cars, trucks and trailers of other vendors to get to our spot. Finally, we parked and unloaded, tent, tables, signs, chairs, jewelry boxes and other stuff. Steve went off to park and while I waited for him to come back, I looked at the long line of vendors. The fair boasted 400 vendors, but I didn't know if this was good or bad. Good that a lot of shoppers would be at the fair and maybe bad because of all the competition.

When Steve got back, we set up the tent and tables and then laid out our jewelry on the displays. We are always changing our displays - trying to find the most attractive way to show off our pieces.

Steve standing by one of our tables

We also had a table going across the front. It is always a decision on how best to place the tables for best visibility. Lately, we've hit upon one table across the front to catch the eye of the people strolling along. Also, in the best possible world, if we can get the sunlight to fall on our jewelry we are happy as the light makes the sea glass glisten and sparkle.

Shirley's crocheted sea glass necklaces

Sea glass Earrings

Various sea glass necklaces

The fair opened at 9 am. People started coming. We were excited, then we were not. No one seemed interested in sea glass jewelry. A lot of people didn't even know what sea glass was so we had to educate them. I was surprised as I'd thought since we were in a beach town, everyone would know about sea glass, but that was not the case. The vendor next to us who sold hats did a brisk business, while we sat and sat. Occasionally, someone would stop and admire the jewelry or tell us about their sea glass hunting adventures. And occasionally, someone would actually buy a piece of jewelry - especially the lower priced pieces. We were happy to have a sale, any sale. As the day dragged on, the street became crowded with people - really crowded. People strolling, eating ice cream and carmel korn or hot dogs, pushing baby strollers, walking dogs. I realized that most people were just looking - not buying. It was a day to get out of the house and go to a free event. I also realized that most of the vendors were selling food or low priced items made in China - the street fair was a glorified swap meet, not exactly our venue. It soon became crystal clear that we needed to be in art fairs, not street fairs. Art fairs are juried affairs which allow only artisan wares, paintings and other things created by artists.

Sea glass with Abalone pendant

Sea glass pendant with sterling wire wrap and sterling mermaid

Rare cobalt blue sea glass wrapped in sterling wire

The fair closed at 5 and by 6, we were headed out of Encinitas back to Palm Springs - a two hour drive home. We were exhausted and disappointed, but we'd learned a lot. While Steve drove, I tallied up our sales - $305 which wasn't so bad, but we'd spent $300 on the entry fee for the two day event and another $80 on gas to get there. We were in the red. As we drove home, we decided that we weren't going back for the second day. We reasoned that if we didn't sell anything we'd be out another $80 for gas and deeper in the red. We called my sister and we all agreed to forget the second day. Was it the right decision? I don't know - I just tell myself that you win some and you lose some.

Please check out our new website at http://sistersjewelrydesigns.com/

Cayucos Sea Glass Festival 2012

2012-03-18T11:40:00.001-07:00

Early Friday morning, 6:30 to be exact, Steve and I left Palm Springs and headed for Los Angeles where we would leave our standard poodle, Dylan, with Steve's parents for the weekend. We then headed north to Cayucos for the second annual Cayucos Sea Glass Festival. After eight hours of driving, we rolled into the small beach town around 3:30. We checked into our hotel, then headed down to the Veterans' Hall at the end of the pier - where the festival would be held.

The organizers, Kiki, Leila, and Carol, (sorry I don't know the names of the others), were having a mixer for the vendors. It was a fun event with food and music. The mixer was a chance to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. We also had a chance to locate our spot and set up our display pieces. Since the two tables were already covered with white table cloths, we decided not to use our black ones. After setting up our display, we headed off to the hotel and went to bed early as the next day the clock would switch to Daylight Savings Time and we'd lose an hour. The time change can really throw you off. I would be tired for the next two days.

Bright and early, and I mean early, 7:30, we headed back to the hall to set out our jewelry. During the night, we'd decided that we needed to use our black table cloths because the white ones were short and we wanted to hide the boxes under the tables. So off came the displays, on went the black cloths and then on with the displays again. All around us, people were setting up their booths and chatting and drinking coffee. It was a fun atmosphere. It takes us a long time to set up because all of our jewelry is in individual plastic bags to keep the silver from tarnishing. Finally, after a couple of hours we had the tables set up.

As you can see above, there are a lot of pieces to remove from bags. At the end of the show, all these pieces go back in their bags. Time consuming, to say the least.

As we were setting up, we could see out the windows a line of customers forming. Every time, I looked the line was longer. Eventually, the line stretched out of sight and down the pier. I didn't know whether to be excited or scared. At ten, the doors opened and a crowd of people surged into the room.

The crowds continued to come all day which was great. We were so busy, we didn't have time for lunch or a break. We didn't care, we were happy selling our jewelry and talking to people. The event had been so well publicized that people came from as far away as Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Solvang, Los Angeles. The first day was a total success. When the day came to an end at five o'clock, we were happy and exhausted and hungry. We met our friends, Victoria and Ken, who also had a booth at the festival. Victoria also has a shop on Etsy called Victoria Roberts Sea Glass Jewelry.

We decided to go to the Sea Shanty restaurant for dinner which, unbeknownst to us, is owned by one of the organizers - Carol Kramer and Bill Shea. Great food at the Sea Shanty and highly recommend it if you are in Cayucos. http://www.seashantycayucos.com/

The second day of the festival started off slow, then really picked up as the day went on. We didn't sell as much as the first day, but it was still profitable and we were very happy with our sales. When the doors closed on the festival on Sunday night at four, we were tired and my legs hurt from standing for two days, but we were still ready to go have some fun. We hooked up with another vendor, Don the Beachcomber and Joan the surfer and went back to the Sea Shanty for another meal. Don and Joan had a booth in the tent outside with a few other vendors like the sisters from Relish who traveled from Erie, PA to be in the show. And Margaret of Adornment.

Monday, we drove back to the desert - glad we'd been included in the Cayucos Sea Glass Festival. We'd written some special orders that needed to be created and we were looking forward to getting back to the workroom.

This is a picture of one of our new necklaces that we previewed at the show. Rose gold chain with a side drilled sea foam green sea glass piece. Dainty and delicate.

You can find us at Etsy or at our new website SistersJewelryDesigns.com

Ways to Promote Your Jewelry

2011-12-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

As you've read in this blog, we've been selling our sea glass jewelry at art fairs and festivals. We've also been selling them on the web at Etsy. Etsy is a large website that hosts stores for artisans, suppliers and vintage sellers. Etsy is an easy way to get your product for sale on the web as they provide the website, simple steps to get started and also a check out/buying cart. I would recommend Etsy to artisans just getting started on the web. You a can see our Etsy store at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Okay, so we are on the internet, but how do people hear about us? Find us? Well, at festivals, we give out our cards which list our Etsy site. We list our site on all our emails underneath our names. This is advertising and a way to promote our sea glass jewelry, but it isn't enough to just be on the internet. The internet is HUGE, so we have to do things to promote our site. First, we joined liked minded sites to promote our Etsy store like Facebook - you can see my Facebook page of Sisters Jewelry Design at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sisters-Jewelry-Design/328818121698 there you can like our page and tell others about us. Also I joined a site that promotes Etsy artists called "We Love Etsy," http://etsylove.ning.com/ This ning site gives you a home page where you can talk to other artists and/or advertise your work with pictures and comments - like - "hey, look what I just created." We also pay for a small site on Handmade Spark which is a marketing service for people on Etsy. What I like about Handmade Spark is you can find everything we are doing in one place, ie., blogging, shop, twitter etc. You can click on this following url to go see my site on Handmade spark -http://www.handmadespark.com/myspark/SistersJewelryDesign

Here is a badge they give to you to put on your sites then you click on the sign and off you go to my advertising site. There are other sites to promote your website/store on the web and just a few are Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Handmade Artist Hangout and more. You can twitter about your jewelry - promote your work! There are so many ways to promote your art on the web even this blog is a way for me to share and PROMOTE our sea glass jewelry.

You can spend hours promoting your work on the web or you can hire other people to do it for you. You can spend money on Google ads, we haven't done the ads yets because I want to have a website first. Hours and money can be spent on advertising.

We've also tried a few unconventional ways to promote our sea glass jewelry. My sister Shirley belongs to several charities and is often called to help decorate or set up an auction, a dinner, a lunch. Recently, she was involved in a charity where you buy a table and invite friends. Well, often when you buy a table at an event you can decorate it the way you want! Shirley decided to do a center piece of sea shells and our sea glass jewelry. Here are a couple of pictures of the table (sorry about dimness of photo).

Note how the sea glass necklace on a card lays over the napkin or is tied around a star fish.

One man at the table did take a necklace home by mistake - his wife called Shirley the next day to say they had her necklace. Our jewelry wasn't for sale at the event, but everyone at the table got a good look at some of our pieces. You never know when someone needs a gift and will remember something they saw recently - like our sea glass jewelry. You can also contribute a piece of your art to a charity for auction which is a great way to promote your product.

Another way, we advertise our jewelry is by having it in a case at Shirley's Travel agency. The case filled with jewelry sits on a side table and above the case hangs a picture of sea glass jewelry. Sometimes, someone takes a look and/or even buys a piece. Here are a couple photos of Shirley's set up -

The above ideas are just a few ways we are trying to promote our sea glass jewelry. It is an ongoing learning process. We'd love to hear from you readers if you have any suggestions.

Stay tuned as next we tackle creating our own website!

Santa Cruz Sea Glass Festival 2011

2011-11-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

Krista Hammond's Booth Santa Cruz Sea Glass

Krista Hammond's collection of Sea Glass

The first weekend of November 2011, found Steve and I heading up to Santa Cruz, California, for the Santa Cruz Sea Glass Festival hosted by Krista Hammond at the Cocoanut Grove on the boardwalk. This would be our second time attending the festival. We were excited and the long drive didn't really bother us. After checking into our hotel, we headed to the Cocoanut Grove - www.cocoanutgrovesantacruz.com .

At the Grove, we found our space and quickly set up displays. We would keep the jewelry with us and set it the following morning. We strolled the room and met up with some other sea glass artists that we'd met at other shows like Joan the Surfer and Don The Beachcomber. Here's a picture of Joan setting up their booth.

Joan setting up Don The Beachcomber Booth

Joan is a really fun person and I'd met her up at the Fort Bragg Festival earlier in the year. At Santa Cruz she gave me a sea glass marble which I cherish as I've yet to find one myself.

The next morning we arrived early and started laying out our sea glass jewelry. The room was a buzz with artists setting up. Here are a few pictures of vendors getting ready for the day.

Beach Glass Bingo Artists

Lewis Jewelry

Kira and a friend

Kira and Gary Ruvo have been sea glass friends for awhile and we love seeing them. You can find Gary's work at www.theglasscrafter.com Gary is a very talented silversmith and both Steve and I are in awe of his work. Kira is a talented graphic artist and sea glass beachcomber. She has found wonderful sea glass including vaseline glass which you use a black light to see the colors. This year, Kira created a beachcombing kit which sold well. She also had her sea glass puzzles which are really fun.

There were 35 amazing sea glass artists at the festival this year. And here are a few pictures of some of the artists with their displays -

Joyce of Jewelry By Joyce Chadderdon

Victoria Roberts' Angels

We met Victoria up in Fort Bragg earlier in the year. I love her sea glass angels. So pretty. You can find Victoria's creations on Etsy.

On one side of our booth was Mary Jessen who sold handmade soaps. We talked a lot between customers and I found out that she owns her own farm and raises many of the herbs and flowers used in her soaps. Here is a link to Mary's site where she sells her soaps, and much more - www.Deerhavensoap.com .

Victoria Roberts at Mary's booth

Now for a few shots of our booth - Sisters Jewelry Design -

Earring Board and necklaces

The other side of booth with pendants and necklaces

Closeup of Shirley's Crochet Necklaces

It was a fun weekend. We sold a lot of sea glass jewelry, saw some old friends and made some new ones. We had planned to eat out every night with some other sea glass vendors, but both Friday and Saturday nights everyone, including us, were too tired to make a party. Krista Hammond who put on the festival treated everyone to appetizers on Saturday night which everyone enjoyed. Steve and I ended up alone for dinner all weekend, but hey, that was good too. Twice we ate at the FireFish Restaurant on the pier. The seafood was excellent - try them if you are in Santa Cruz - firefishgrill.net Monday, we were back on the road heading to Palm Springs.

Next we decide to create a web page of our own. Will we hire someone? Or try to create a website on our own? Come back to find out what we learn and what we do.

Click on side with pictures of our sea glass to go to our Etsy website.

Bend Art Festival - Don't Quit

2011-08-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

From Ashland, Oregon, we traveled to Sunriver, Oregon near Bend. We had a few days on the river before the weekend art festival in Bend, so we took advantage of the free time and went fishing on the Deschutes River which flowed right outside the cabin. Steve was in heaven, he could fish all day and into the night which he did. Sometimes, you have to leave the jewelry making behind and just relax in nature. It is Shirley and Pat's cabin and they came up to the river on Thursday with our Mother Jane in tow. Two of Shirley's kids came over to the cabin too and we all had a fun dinner laughing and talking to family - a big part of what Sisters Jewelry Design is all about. I've mentioned in earlier posts that Shirley and I started our company as way to spend more time together doing something we love - collecting sea glass and making jewelry.

On Friday afternoon, July 8th, we headed into Bend, a half hour drive from Sunriver, to set up our booth. If festival organizers give you an afternoon before the festival to set up, do it as it will save you time and aggravation on the day of the festival. And we got there right on time, as we'd just had the experience of being late to set up in Ashland (see earlier post). We got to the street, found our spot and pulled the SUV into the lane to unload. It was tricky as the there were booths running down both sides of the road and in the middle. We had a middle space. Needless to say, there was a lot of careful driving between the booths already set up and anxious vendors yelling "don't get to close to my table, etc."

Here is a shot of a bench sculpture that is at the corner where we'd turn in to set up our booth.

And here is a picure of the street where we set up our booth. Our booth is the fourth one down in the middle. This picture gives you and idea how close the booths were. Because, we were in the middle of the street, we set up using only the two sides of the tent that connected with the other tents, so customers could walk through the tent. The walk through idea is good in that no matter which side people walk they can enter from either side. The bad or downside of this type of set up is that often people just cut through your space to get to the other walkway. In the future, if posssible, I'd prefer to have a space on either side and not in the middle. There are pros and cons for either placement.

Here is a shot of Steve looking down the street from our tent.

It was a bright sunny day and it got hotter as the day progressed, which is another reason to worry about where your booth is placed. Sometimes, you don't get to choose where your booth is situated, but if you have the choice take into account - weather, foot traffic, light If you are indoors, you'll notice that people enter and usually turn right so a good spot for your tables would be to the right of the door. We watch the flow of traffic and are still trying to figure this all out. There is psychology behind how people move through a room or down a street. Think long and hard about product placement.

Here is a shot looking through our tent.

As you looked through our tent to the other side you could see a vendor playing a long guitar and selling cd's. I don't know what it is but we can't seem to get away from these music men. This man was nicer, but after two days of listening to his music all day long it got old. The first time, he took a break, I thought great, a little quiet, but then he loaded his cd into a player and we got more music. I don't want to ever hear "Greensleeves," again or "Free Bird." Also crowds would gather in front of his booth blocking the walkway which did little to let traffic into our booth. Here is a picture of my mother Jane and Shirley's husband Pat - in the background you can see the music vendor. Bend was a two day art festival that covered four blocks of art, crafts, stores and food. And the days were long, going until 7 at night. After the first long day and without many sales, we thought about not coming back for Sunday's sale. It had been really hot and really discouraging. As we drove back to the cabin at Sunriver, we talked for ten minutes about quitting , then for the next twenty minutes we talked about why we should go back on Sunday - we were there, we'd paid for two days and sales might get better.

Sunday dawned bright and early. We were out the door by 6:15 and heading into Bend. It was going to be another hot day. After setting up our displays again, we took turns going to Starbucks for coffee. We talked to other vendors and looked at other people's wares. There were some really fine artists at the festival. I wanted to buy a copper salmon sculpture, but Steve pointed out that we hadn't sold enough to cover the cost. I ended up buying a photograph of a river scene in Oregon from the vendor across from us. Then we got down to business. Again, the sun started to beat down without mercy. There were lots of people, but mostly lookey-loos. By lunchtime, we were discouraged again, having made only one sale. Shirley was still smiling, but she was no longer standing. The day trudged on with a few people saying they'd come back. You hear that a lot, but don't count on it. Our boredom was high. We talked Steve into watching the booth and Shirley and I walked the blocks then stopped for an icy blended drink. We ate cookies, we talked on the phone - anything to make the time go faster. Finally, around 4:30 a young woman came into our booth, she'd visited earlier. Well, now she was ready to buy. She bought a sea glass pendant and then her mother arrived and she bought one too. They had barely left the booth when another woman with her daughter came into the booth and started buying and buying and buying. She wanted gifts to give all of her girls and some friends too. She bought pendants and necklaces. She bought more in that last hour than we'd sold Saturday and all of Sunday. She made our day which is why I've titled this piece "Don't Quit." Sometimes, you have to wait to the very end to make sales. And sometimes, those lookey-loos do come back after seeing everything else at the festival. So don't quit when the going gets tough. Sea glass pendants - one in sterling, one in gold filled wire. On top a sea glass necklace with sterling wire wrapped pendant. You can find us on Etsy at ttp://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Lesson Learned - A Mean Music Man

2011-07-21T14:20:00.001-07:00

July 4, 2011 found us at the Ashland, Oregon Art Festival in Lithia Park. Yes, we did this festival last year. Not a big money maker, but we like the setting and the people - at least we did until this year. Or I should say, we like the people, except for one busybody vendor and a mean Music Man.

We got to the park a little late, but still early enough to unload and get the car out before the 8:00 deadline of moving the car. Drove right up to our assigned space, the same one we'd had last year, jumped out and stopped dead in our tracks. There was a scruffy young man with an odd looking modified guitar, amplifiers, tables and chairs in our space. Shirley walked up to the Music man and introduced herself, then pointed out that he was in our space - a space we'd paid for and reserved. He went into a story about how he'd traded spaces with another vendor up the line and her space was next to ours, but since we weren't there, he'd taken it upon himself to take our space. About this time, this older woman vendor-busybody comes along all smiles and cheerily tells us that she "thought" it would be fine to let the Music Man have our space.

Well, it wasn't fine with us. We wanted our space and we wanted him to move down the row to the space he'd exchanged with the busybody vendor. Well, he wasn't about to move - telling us that up the line, further into the park, there were a lot of spaces and we could go there. Everyone was getting angry. Finally, an official from the festival came and she tried to calm everyone down and offered us a two space spot further up. Shirley and I didn't want to go up the line of vendors as we wanted our spot. Steve stepped in and said, "Let's move up there." I could tell Steve was upset and he would get more upset if he had to spend the day next to the Music Man. So reluctantly, we moved our stuff up the line. In the meantime, while we were talking to the official, the Music Man slipped off and hid making it impossible to get him to move.

A couple of days later, we learned from a friend that they hadn't walked all the way up the line of vendors, but had turned around where we had our booth the year before. We could understand as it was a hot day and after the parade and walking up past food booths, some people in the park didn't check out all the booths. Lesson learned - don't get to the festival late - get there early to make sure no one takes your spot. (I am glad we didn't have to spend the day next to the Music Man as later when I walked by he was playing some sort of musak on his modified guitar and I'm not sure I'd classify it as music.) Our booth ended up being across from the hat vendor - nice people who did a brisk business. We set up our tables and took up two spaces as we were assigned.

Here we are looking a bit frazzled after setting up the booth. It was early and the sun hadn't hit our side of the park at this point. Later we would wish we were still in the shade. Shirley sold some of her sea glass pendants.

And I sold some of my sea glass earrings -

So all in all, it was a good show - despite learning a hard lesson from a mean Music Man. Next, we are off to an art Festival in Bend, Oregon where we meet up with another fellowing playing and selling his music.

Please check out our store on Etsy at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ for more sea glass jewelry.

Second Fort Bragg Sea Glass Festival

2011-06-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

On May 27, 2011, we drove up to Fort Bragg, California for our second sea glass festival at Captain Cass's Sea Glass Museum - http://glassbeachjewelry.com/ It is a long drive from Palm Springs as Fort Bragg is several hours past San Francisco. We finally got to our motel and unloaded, then hit the beach. The coastline in Fort Bragg is strewn with cliffs and rocks. There is one sandy beach near where we go, but the best glass beaches are the ones you climb down the rocks to the beach below. One of the very best glass beaches is accessible by climbing, but it is off limits and posted with no trespassing signs. I really wanted to go there, but with my luck I would have been ticketed so we kept to the other sites. We picked up glass for about an hour then headed back to the motel. It'd been a long day and we were starved. The first night we ate at a wonderful restaurant called Chapter & Moon. It is a small place with a tiny staff and you have a view of the harbor. The food is to die for - homemade breads, grilled salmon, fresh seafood and huge garden fresh salads - located at 32150 N. Harbor Dr. (S. Main St.)Fort Bragg, CA 95437.

At the restaurant, we started talking to a couple next to our table, telling them about the next day's sea glass festival. And we asked the restaurant owner if they'd heard of the festival. No one had heard or seen anything about the festival which wasn't a good sign. We'd asked earlier at the motel if they knew about the festival and they hadn't heard of it either. Yikes, no advertising. We knew the town was full of weekenders - all the hotels and motels were full, but would anyone come? We went off to bed hoping the weather would be nice in the morning and the festival would draw a crowd.

The next day, we arrived at the museum grounds and Captain Cass told us we'd be one of six vendors. He also told us he was putting up a sign which could be seen from the highway. Hmmm. Was that it for the advertising? Well, we didn't have time to worry as we had to set up our tent and put out our displays. As you can see from the picture, the day started out nice - blue skies and sun. More about weather in a bit. Here are some pictures of the tents of the other vendors -

This is a shot of Tammy Sue Davis. You can find her on the web at tammy@mendocoasttreasures.com Tammy lives in Fort Bragg and she finds the most wonderful glass. She is an artisan who creates sea glass jewelry and accessories. I love her dog collars with sea glass.

Next to Tammy's tent was a vendor named Victoria Roberts, who does custom designs, repairs and instruction. She makes the most beautiful crocheted bracelets with wire and delicate sea glass earrings. You can find her on the web at http://vroberts1017.etsy.com/ You can just see Victoria on the stool in the blue sweatshirt. The husbands were standing around chatting about the weather or whatever.

The end booth belonged to Don the Beachcomber and Surfer Joan. Both fun people and great artisans. They live in Santa Cruz and you can find their jewelry in shops there and at the famous Santa Cruz sea glass festival. Don does a lot of bevel work with sea glass and silver. Joan makes the loveliest sea glass rings in silver. On our last morning in Fort Bragg, Joan and I sat on the beach talking and picking up sea glass - it was fun.

I don't know what happened, but I didn't get a picture of Wendy Craig, another vendor who came all the way from New Jersey for the show. She had made incredible necklaces with marbles she'd found at the beach back east. Really delightful work. You can see her work at http://www.2ndtimeglass.com/ - really worth a look.

I also didn't get a picture of the couple next to us - Pete and Kim of Sea Glass Essentials. We'd met them at another sea glass festival and they are the nicest people as well as being great artisans. Take a look at their work at info@seaglassessentials.com

We all got set up and a few customers started arriving as did the rain. Luckily, we all had tents and could keep semi dry. And we certainly appreciated the customers who came and braved the rain. We made a few sales, but by noon, everyone was packing up and leaving. Wendy from New Jersey decided to stick it out and so did Capt. Cass, but he was inside a nice warm building. My feet were wet and I was getting cold, so we packed up our jewelry and headed to the motel. We had just finished lunch when I saw that the sun had come back out. So Steve and I decided we should go back to our tent and set up again - which we did and stayed open until 5 pm. I don't think we made another sale, but we felt good about trying - which meant being there.

A shot of Steve looking at our inventory. (I think this was taken in the morning, before the rain.)

That night we went to Silvers at the Wharf. A large commercial restaurant down by the harbor. Good food with a full bar which is what you need after a day of rain - stops and starts.

Sunday started off with overcast skies. Gray clouds and a slight wind. I prayed it wouldn't rain. I should have prayed the wind didn't pick up which it did in the afternoon. It got so windy by late afternoon that Tammy's tent was blowing over as was Wendy's. Our earrings on cards were flying off the displays. Again, the others left, but we stuck it out with Wendy from New Jersey. Finally, the wind got so bad and it was late, we packed up. Captain Cass said we could come and sell again on Monday which was the holiday, but we were done. We went down to the beach again and braved the wind, but I was all bundled up and ready for a typhoon. Dinner was at Chapter & Moon again as we both love the food there. Monday morning, hit the beach again where I ran into Joan and we chatted as we picked up sea glass. She was looking for a marble for me as I've never found one. She didn't find one and to this day, I still haven't found a marble at the beach. Here are a few shots of some of the sea glass and pottery pieces I did find -

As you can see brown sea glass is very common and plentiful as is white.

Driving back to Palm Springs seemed like a long haul to do in one day, like our trip up to Fort Bragg, so we stopped way down the coast at Shell Beach which is next to Pismo beach and only 2 hours from Los Angeles. And of course, once we found a motel, we had to run right down to the beach. Here are a couple of shots of Shell Beach, another beach you have to hike down too the sand.There were no shells or sea glass on Shell Beach. Maybe it was the wrong time of year? We had a lot of fun on our sea glass festival weekend - ate some good food, made new friends and sold some of our sea glass jewelry. Here is a shot of one of our new designs to look at until I get back to blogging about our next adventure. (Sea glass from Fort Bragg - sterling wire and sterling mermaid charm)

Find us at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

On The Road Again

2011-05-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

It is that time again - summer art festivals. So we are hitting the road on Thursday to drive up to Fort Bragg. Captain Cass of the Sea Glass Museum in Fort Bragg is holding his annual sea glass festival on Saturday, May 28 through May 29, 2011, from 10 to 6. Fort Bragg is on the Mendocino coast above San Francisco. A beautiful drive, if a bit winding. Here's a great site that tells you little bit about Mendocino and northern coastal towns - href=http://www.mendocinocoast.com/about

So yesterday and today, I'm packing sea glass jewelry in boxes and making sure I have all the seller tools in another box like pens, order forms, cards etc.
The above picture is a new design of Jasper coin beads, sterling silver balls and white sea glass wrapped in sterling wire.

Hmm, yes, this is an odd picture of a sea glass necklace on a large shell. I was trying to get artsy. But really, a straight on shot would have been better, don't you think? Anyway, this is another new design using pink pearls, abalone coins, and sterling silver wire wrapped pale blue sea glass.

My sister and the other half of Sisters Jewelry Design, Shirley, is sending down more sea glass jewelry from Medford, Oregon where she lives and works. Last year, we met at Fort Bragg to do the festival together, but she can't make it this year. She did do a festival for us at Art in Bloom on Mother's Day weekend which was a big success. Still it would be fun if she was coming, but c'est la vie.

Tomorrow, we will pack our truck with tables, tablecloths, chairs, a tent, jewelry boxes, displays and other items we will need for the two day festival. And, even though I made a list, I will hope that I haven't forgotten anything.

I'll leave you with a new design of sea glass earrings. Back next week with adventures from the road and the festival.

You can find our store at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sbrin1#!/pages/Sisters-Jewelry-Design/328818121698

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign - sea glass jewelry and necklaces

2011-05-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign - sea glass jewelry and necklaces

Collecting Sea Glass for Sea Glass Jewely

2011-05-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-06-21T11:43:00.001-07:00

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

2010-06-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Fort Bragg Sea Glass Festival - Part One

2010-06-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

On May 26, a Wednesday night, we started our Fort Bragg adventure. We were going to a festival as vendors and we were going to find sea glas on the glass beach at Fort Bragg. At least, I hoped we'd find sea glass. Living in Palm Springs and hours from Fort Bragg, we decided to drive first to Los Angeles and leave our standard Poodle Dylan Thomas with Steve's parents and stay over night to get an early start Thursday morning.

Dylan Thomas was not happy the next morning when we got up at 4:30 and started packing up. He could tell he wasn't going when his food bag wasn't carried out to the car. He knows our routines - who says poodles aren't smart? I told him we'd be back, but he refused to look at me and curled up in the back bedroom to pout. I felt horrible as I do whenever we can't take him, but I knew there would be no place to keep him at the show.

Feeling like a guilty parent going off on a vacation, we headed north out of Los Angeles on I-5. My sister Julia and her husband Gary, who would be meeting us in Fort Bragg had given my husband Steve copious notes on how to get to Fort Bragg - something like take I-5 then cut over and go to San Francisco and then up the 101 highway to highway 20 which ends in Fort Bragg. I suggested to Steve that he study the route on Google maps, but he said he had it down. Yeah, right, how many women have heard that before. We moved right along. Not much traffic as the Memorial Day rush out of town hadn't started yet. I was excited to see my sister Julia and also my sister Shirley, my jewelry business partner, as she and her husband would be coming down from Medford, Oregon. A family reunion, sea glass hunting, and selling our sea glass jewelry at a Seaglass Festival what could be more fun?

Sea Glass Eye Glass Holder

Six hours of driving and we reach San Francisco - now here is where we needed a map. Instead of going straight, I think this is where the mistake was made, we veered to the right and suddenly we were in downtown San Francisco - 6th street, 8th street, Geary Street all whizzed by. Steve was grousing that driving in the city was his worst nightmare. It got tense in the car. I suggested we stop and ask someone. No, couldn't do that. Finally, at a red light, I got the attention of a cabbie and he pointed to the right and said something unintelligible and we were off again - still lost. Suddenly we were on Van Ness, then Lombard Street near the top where the zig zag street is located. Steve's jaw was clenched and he was muttering. I yelled head for the water. At Fisherman's wharf we found a sign pointing the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. As we crossed the bridge I tried pointing out Alcatraz and other sights, but Steve wasn't really into sight seeing at this point. Later, I'd joke that our detour had given him a quick tour of the city. We'd laugh later but at that moment, Steve had lost his sense of humor. Needless to say, I didn't mention the fact that we didn't bring a map.

Steve thought Fort Bragg was maybe an hour out of San Francisco. It isn't. We had four more hours to go. Beautiful scenery, especially when you turn onto highway 20 and drive 33 miles of curvy roads through the giant Redwood forest. We were both tired and cranky when Hwy 20 deadended in Fort Bragg. Oh, did I mention that I was fighting a sinus infection and chest cold?

We drive to the Travel Lodge where we have reservations. Julia and Gary come out to meet us. Julia is a little upset that the motel doesn't have a view. I tell her that it doesn't have a view because it is cheap and that's why I picked it. Like I said I was a bit cranky.

We settle in and head off for the famous glass beach. Yeah, I'm tired and sick, but, hey, I'm in Fort Bragg, California, home of the famous Glass Beach. Also, there is a negative tide happening and I'm sure we'll find better glass in the tide pools. Little did I know that there is sea glass everywhere. I'm not sure where Glass Beach is so I call Captain Cass who owns the Sea Glass museum in Fort Bragg. He isn't in, but my sister tells me that she knows where it is as she asked around before we got there. Also, the desk man at the motel gives us a MAP.

Our motel is situated right on Highway 1 that goes through the town. Two blocks north down on Elm Street is a Denny's restaurant. You make a left on Elm past Denny's, then head toward the water and come to stretch of grass and a path. Park where you can and take the path, which is what we did. We follow the path, carrying out bags, and it is really pretty. A short walk and we come to a fork in the road. Now what? Do we go right or go straight. The map doesn't show the fork in the road. We go right, but is it the way to Glass beach? Did we find the Glass beach? Find out in part two of our adventure.

Art Shows - Are We Making Money Yet?

2010-05-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

As I've written in earlier posts we started doing some arts and crafts shows. Mainly, in our neck of the woods - meaning Palm Springs and out to San Diego. As total novices we didn't know how to get connected to the shows so I subscribed to the "Craftmaster News," - yes, you have to buy a subscription, nothing is free, but I digress. I'd read the shows listed by month and of course, noted the price of shows which has so far determined whether we go or not as we don't want to put out the big bucks for shows until we know what we are doing. One of the art shows that caught my attention was "Recycled Treasure," in Paso Robles, California. Reasons for applying to this particular show: 1. entry fee $40 (price is right), 2. sea glass is definitely recycled treasure and 3. the clincher - my sister Julia, who doesn't do jewelry lives in Solvang so we can stay with her, get in a visit, then do the show. Perfect. Well, not quite.

I applied to the show, sent in pictures of our sea glass jewelry. Got accepted, then learned that sister Julia and her husband were going to be in Key West, Florida that weekend. So we'd get in a dinner and stay at her place alone on the way back. Disappointing, but hey, I'd committed to do the show. We left Palm Springs in the morning drove to Los Angeles and left our black poodle, Dylan Thomas, with Steve's parents then headed up to Solvang. We had a great dinner with my sister, then drove another two hours up to Paso Robles. I'd booked us into Motel 6 - hey, I have to save money where I can. It was late when we arrived. We got lost and then finally found the motel. Now it was really late in the evening and we were exhausted. First lesson of the road trip - don't save money on a motel if you don't know where the motel is located. And you know of course, that Motel 6 is no longer $6 if it ever was - "They leave the light On," but that is about it for amenities. This particular motel was $79 a night with tax. Once in the room, I noticed that there was no coffee pot, so much for bringing tea and apple cider drinks, and no shampoo. I hadn't brought any as I'm used to hotels having shampoo. Anyway, I went up to the desk and asked for shampoo - nope, they don't provide it nor do they have any to buy. So bring your own shampoo if you stay in a Motel 6, (must be one of their cost cutting schemes). My husband suggested we go out and find an all night drug store, but we'd gotten lost once and I didn't want to get in the truck again. The room was clean and the shower hot so that was good. The bad was that the Paso Robles Motel 6 is situated right next to the freeway about two feet away. I could swear that if a semi-truck pulled over to rest it would be in our room. The freeway noise was loud and all night long. So be careful of where you book your stay before a show.

We got up early, found out how to get to the Paso Robles park, then headed off to Starbucks for coffee (remember there was not pot in the room). The Recycled Treasure Show was held in the downtown park. We found our allotted space, unpacked, then Steve went to park the pickup. Now, you'd think I'd be setting up while he is parking. No. I wait for him to return because our tent/gazebo is like stiff and hard to erect. I see other people putting up their tents and it looks easy. Believe me, for me it's not. I could maybe do it if I had all day - I'm not mechanical and I hate contraptions that can pinch fingers and crash on my head. I couldn't put up the tables either because instead of buying light weight folding tables at say WalMart, we were using our old banquet tables that weight about 500 pounds (a little exaggeration) and they too have folding legs that pinch fingers. Finally, Steve gets back and we start setting up our space. First, we erect the tent and I have to drag the sand bags over to secure to the legs so the darn thing doesn't fly away, then we do the tables, then the table cloths, then the display boards, then we have to take all the jewelry out of plastic bags and display it prettily on the tables. Oh and the earrings, hundreds of them, it seems like hundreds, have to all come out of tiny plastic bags and be placed on earring boards (something we've just designed and are trying out for the first time. These boards are all heavy too - made out of plywood and not the thin plywood.)

(Here is a picture of one of the earring boards. The board works, but I'm not in love with the way it looks so we're still on the hunt for an attractive way to display the earrings. ) When we are finally set up it is about 8:00 and the show doesn't start until 9, but people were walking in the park and started to stop by the booths so it worked out fine.

Angles of booth. Sorry, didn't get a straight on shot.

While we waited for customers, Steve started leaving the booth to get food. He was hungry. He started with a hot dog and then went back for tamales and sodas. Then later, he made a run to a nearby coffee shop for frozen coffee drinks and scones. This is another expense, you have to consider when doing shows. Either bring your lunch or plan on spending your profits at the food vendors who always seem to have the most customers of all. Hmmm, what does that tell you?

We made a few sales and that always makes me happy. One of the biggest sales was my sister Shirley's gray sea glass pendant necklace, but that money would go in her pocket not mine. She had split the $40 entry fee and I was in charge of selling at this event. Anyway, when I started to add up my expenses in my head, I knew we were in the red big time. First, we had gas expense, not cheap when your husband owns a 1 ton pickup truck, 2. dinner in Solvang with my sister at restaurant, 3. Motel 6 at $79 for the night, 4. Food vendors, - and I knew there were more expenses to come for the trip home. On the bright side, I saw my sister Julia which was a treat, we got to see a little bit of Paso Robles which is a really lovely little town with old time square and shops and we got a little more show experience.

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign

2010-05-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign

Art Fairs, Craft Fairs, Sidewalk Sales

2010-03-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

Picture is table set up. We're getting ready to go to a Kite Festival in Ocean Beach, outside of San Diego, where we will have a booth to sell our Sea Glass and Other jewelry. The festival is on Saturday March 6, 2010 at 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. - outside. The weather forecast is now calling for some rain showers - oh, great. We were juried into the show, meaning we had to send pictures of our work and hope they like it, then we were accepted and had to pay a nonrefundable fee and now it might rain - I'm quickly learning that outdoor venues have a major drawback - the weather.

As I've explained in earlier posts, we are new to making jewelry and marketing. We've had home jewelry parties and we've had one indoor art fair, an easy one as it was up the street and one side walk sale that no one attended, and a few sales on our internet site Etsy. How do we get our jewelry out there for people to see and buy was the next question we asked. Luckily, there are nice people who share and one such person told us to buy the magazine "Craftmaster News," which I did. It's not cheap, but it lists almost all the big events on the West Coast - 2,500 evens to be exact.

So now I have the magazine and I begin looking at all the events listed by months. I looked at the location - we can't be driving to Idaho, right, then I looked at the cost of the event. We're small and right now we can't afford to put out $500 or more for a weekend event. I circled the shows in our area and in Oregon because the other half of Sisters Jewelry Design is Shirley and she lives in Oregon (a long way for us to drive, but I can see my sister so it's worthwhile). And I have to look at the type of show - if it is an auto show or farm equipment show for example, I know that sea glass jewelry won't be a big seller.

Okay, so now I have three criteria for picking an event - location, type of show and cost of show. The first show I picked is the one mentioned above, The Kite Festival in Ocean Beach, San Diego. It is a two hour drive for us, but it is near the beach which is a great location for a sea glass jewelry artisan booth, and it is realitively inexpensive at $35 for a 10x10 space. I took some pictures of our jewelry and submitted to the fair committee and waited to hear if we got into the show. We are accepted - yeah.
Back to the garage and the table set up. We've got our first art fair show lined up, but now we have to get ready. I learn that a lot of art and craft shows have rules - for example - they want all the tables to be covered with the cloth falling to the ground, they want fire retardent table covers, and of course, they specifiy the size of the booth. Originally, when we had the home shows and the one show up the street, we just used a bolt of material from Wal-Mart and cut it to size. Now, we realize we have to have something that looks professional. My sister suggests we have the table covers made - that idea turned out to be quite expensive so I went on the internet and found these black covers made to order - not cheap, but fire retardent and cheaper than having a seamstress make them. (There are a lot of sites on the internet that sell table covers and booth setups - ranging in price from low to high. You can even have your company's name or logo on the skirt of the covers, of course that is not an inexpensive option.)

I forgot to tell you that for tables, we had a bunch of banquet table legs, so Steve went to Home Depot and bought plywood and made the tables to fit the 10x10 space. We saved on not having to buy professional convention tables that fold up, they can start at $100 and go up, but our tables have two drawbacks - heavy and you need a pickup to carry them to the site as they are long. Luckily, we have a pickup and Steve is strong so he's in charge of setting up the tables. I am thinking that if we are successful at selling our wares at art fairs we may eventually buy the fold up tables - for now, we're on a shoe string budget.

Okay, we've got the tables and the covers, the next big questions to solve is how do we display our jewelry. In the past, we'd just put everything on the table flat - easy, but not really attractive. My sister and I hashed over some ideas, nothing grabbed us. I decided to go to an art festival and see what other people were doing which led me to The Southwest Arts Festival in Indio, California at the Empire Polo Grounds. This fair charged a $10 admission fee and you had to pay for parking in a big dirt lot. Approaching the Polo Grounds, we could see a myriad of tents set up on the polo grounds grassy area.

The art fair included a myriad of artisans from rug weavers to fine artists, watercolorists, sculptors, leather bags and of course, jewelry artists. There was food and music and lots of people milling about. We mapped out our course of how we would see the booths - doing the full circle then the inner rows.
(I've learned there is actually an art to picking where your booth is located as psychologically, most people enter say a room and turn right, often not seeing the row down the center or the left side booth area - interesting, huh?)

There was a lot to see and as we went along I asked if I could take photos for my blog and some people graciously said yes, and some were paranoid that I might copy some of their work - not, but that was okay too. One of the artisans I really liked was a woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico - Karen Carlson - she creates with leather and her bags were simply stunning. Another artist, I really liked was Cameron Kaseberg from Redmond, Oregon, who does solvent transfer of images. He had wonderful images of crows and as I'm a big fan of crows I was drawn to his work. Note in the above two pictures, you can see the two different booths and the set up. We also saw several jewelry booths and their set ups.

Note the plastic boxes and the large photos of jewelry on back and side walls of booths. These last two pictures show very sophisticated booth layouts. Hopefully, as we do more shows and learn more about the business of selling our jewelry at shows, we'll develop more of a look for our booths, but right now time and money dictate a simpler look for us. We left the art fair with more knowledge and more questions in our mind. So much to learn and yet, I'm confident as we sally forth to do a few shows this summer we will answer a lot of questions we have on "how to."

As I write this and look at these pictures again, I realize that most of the pop-up tents are white.

We bought a pop-up for this weekend because of the forecast of showers, but they didn't have white. I hope our light brown one will be okay. I'll let you know in my next post which will be after the show coming up.

Blue Moon and A Learning Curve

2010-01-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

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

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

2010-01-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-11-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

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.