Goin' Glassing

Well, it is that time of year when we close up shop, pack our bags and hop in the car to do a little 'glassing.

Glass Bottle Beach

What is glassing you say? Well it is what a seasoned beach person says when they are going to look for seaglass. Kind of like 'Gone Fishin'. This year we will be making a journey that we have been wanting to make for awhile, only reading about it on various sea glass sites and journals. In addition to visiting our dear Jersey Shore, we will be making a visit to Glass Bottle Beach at Dead Horse Bay. This particular beach is near Brooklyn NY and is so called as it was the site of several factories, many of them having the distinction of being 'glue' factories, around the turn of the century. At that time when horse and buggy reigned supreme, it was not uncommon to see dead horses along the side of the road. The carcases were eventually hauled to one of the many glue plants to...well...make glue. After the automobile became the choice mode of transportation, the surrounding area of the bay evolved into a giant land fill until it closed in the 1950's. Now, the bare land is a somewhat macabre attraction for bottle collectors as the now busted open land fill churns out into the bay and then is brought back in again to settle with the incoming tide. The city's history literally washes out and then back in again, filling the beach with shards of antique pottery, junk and of course, bottles, hence the name, Glass Bottle Beach.
Anyway, I have always wanted to 'pick' this particular spot and now about this time next week, I will be there! 
Anyway, I hope to come back with many tales of wonder from our excursion and in the meantime, if you want to read a little more of this well kept 'secret', you can read about it 
on the Atlas Obscura site here.

Seaglass Pendant

To see examples of how seaglass can be made into beautiful jewelry, visit Handmade Jewelry Haven's Etsy Site here. We will be putting the shop in 'Vacation Mode' while we are gone but will reopen the following week when we return.

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Wordless Wednesday

Today's Wordless Wednesday Features Various 'Find's' from Glass Bottle Beach at Dead Horse Bay in anticipation of our upcoming 'glassing trip. Enjoy!

Have you visited Glass Bottle Beach? If so, what treasures did you find?

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Kumihimo - Learning Something New

So back in November, some of you will remember, that I drove over to the west coast of Florida with my kids to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. It was a great trip, we got to see people that we haven't seen for awhile and do some things we love to do in new places (shelling and glassing). One of the people we got to see was my aunt Judith. She is my aunt by marriage, my uncle Bob passing a few years ago, and she is just an amazingly creative woman. Ever since I have known her she is 'into' one thing or another. I remember one visit she was into sewing these, literally, award winning quilts. She would make these amazing quilted clothing pieces that had a decidedly Asian quality about them. Her and my uncle used to travel a lot to Japan for business, and he used to live in Japan for many years, so he had an affinity for everything Asian. Anyway...after that visit I, totally on impulse, I went right out and bought a book on quilting intending to jump right in and create these beautiful heirloom quilts that I would give to family members for years to come. Well...if any of you have known me for any length of time, you will know that I have an absolute love-hate relationship with my sewing machine. I can barely hem a pair of pants without the bottom thread getting all bunched up - which you can't tell has happened until either, A: The fabric jams in your machine or B: You take out what you think is a beautiful piece of hemmery (I know that is not a word - cut me some slack here!) only to find this jumbled mess of bunched up thread underneath. Anyway...long story short, quilting never became part of my world.

So fast forward many years, to this Thanksgiving, and we have driven aunt J back to her 

place of residence in Naples, and we are having a nice lunch with her before we drive the last leg back to the east coast and I am just DROOLING over her necklace. I compliment

Kumihimo Bobbins

her on it and am just floored when she tells me that she MADE it! My daughter and I were just stunned! So in the middle of this...she blurts out this funny word...(and I am really praying that she never reads this blog post). Well Bella and I just kind of glance at each other like what did she just say?? See, Aunt J is not from the US, and she has this really strong British accent, plus she just naturally speaks very low. Well...we both just smiled and nodded and life went on.
Some weeks after we got home I was still thinking about that necklace and started googling and low and behold...KUMIHIMO was introduced into my world! Then it dawned on me!! THAT is what Aunt J blurted out! Kumihimo! Now...for those of you that don't know, Kumihimo is a Japanese form of braiding. Cords and ribbons are made by interlacing strands, of thread, and very recently, by adding beads to make very decorative pieces of Jewelry.

Kumihimo Beaded Necklace

 Kumi himo is Japanese for 'gathered threads'. So, I watched a couple of YouTube videos and bought all the stuff and went to work. Now THIS was something I could get into! I LOVE it. Talk about a stress reliever! And now I have something to compliment my sea glass pieces that I am wire wrapping! So, if you are wondering what is happening at our household on Tuesday and Thursdays, you can bet that Bella and I are weaving to our hearts content. Be sure to 'Favorite' my Etsy store at Handmade Jewelry Haven so you won't miss these upcoming treasures! 

Kumihimo is fun!

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De-Stressing By The Sea

Today I decided to take my daughter to the beach to try and find some sea glass and shells for our respective hobbies and mainly to de-stress from the previous week. The weather had been unusually wet from a cold front that had come down from up north, causing rough surf and heavy winds. Ideal conditions for finding lots of detritus washed up on the beach. I timed our arrival to coincide with the low tide, however, instead of finding the beach strewn with frosted white sea glass, we found instead, miles of frosted white jellyfish - a beach combers nightmare, to be sure.

We slowly trailed the low tide mark, growing increasingly dismayed at not finding much in the way of glass or shells.  

It never seems to amaze me how the beach landscape can change from day to day seemingly at the very whim of Mother Nature.

After carefully dodging the jellyfish, I glanced down to find a tiny emerald green spec on the sand. Not the beautiful large specimen that I had hoped for, but, as you know from my previous posts, I was eager for anything at this point.

Bella, watching me with my new found fascination with Sea Glass, asked me if she too could look for some glass, and if she could keep it. Of course I replied, 'Yes! What you find is yours!'

After about an hour, we decided to turn around and now try our luck at the high tide mark. The amount of trash on this part of the beach was staggering. We walked a little faster now as our parking meter deadline was rapidly approaching. I picked up a beach seed and slowly rolled it in the palm of my hand silently praying to the sea gods to grant me one good piece. I suddenly glanced to the left to see, what appeared to be, another half dried jellyfish on the sand....but this one was flatter. So I gingerly tapped it with my fingernail and LO AND BEHOLD IT WAS SOLID!! EUREKA!!
I held it up to the sky making a 'heavenly chorus' type of noise and gave a silent heartfelt thank you.

Bella was getting rather discouraged at this point, as little girls will get when their instant gratification needs aren't met. I told her to hold 'the lucky beach seed' and to keep looking, and what-do-you-know?! She finds a smaller piece of frosted opaque white glass within three minutes!!

All in all, I think we had a very productive day and look forward to more 'de-stressing' days at the beach (hopefully without the 'stress' of course ;)

Can you tell me which is the 'Lucky Beach Seed' pictured above and be sure to visit Handmade Jewelry Haven's Etsy Shop Here.



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A Seaside Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent the long weekend on the west coast of Florida, visiting relatives and, of course, glassing.
Glassing?? Well...yes. Glassing is the term given to walking up and down a beach at low tide. head bent doggedly - sometimes painfully - down, looking for frosty glass fragments.

These are a few pieces that I've found along Ft. Lauderdale beach over the last year.
Yes. Three whole pieces. This seems to be rather a let down, compared to the glass filled beaches of California and the upper east coast of the US. However it was a bonanza compared to how we fared on the west coast of Florida!

After carefully preparing for my trip with hotel arrangements, etc, I scoured the internet trying to find out where the 'good' spots would be in that area. Some of the locations included, Anna Maria Island, Clearwater Beach and Honeymoon Island State Park. I downloaded a really nice Tidal App called 'Tides Near Me' to be able to tell, at a moments notice, when the next low tide would be. I scoped out a great lunch place to eat and then be able to walk out and do a little glassing on the trip up.

My daughter is the early riser in the family and she would faithfully wake me to get dressed and quietly sneak out of the hotel room so my son could sleep in, and we would drive to the beach to do a little walking and collecting. She also has started a new hobby of creating 'Beach Jars' from all the different beaches that we visit. We are having fun co-hobbying.

So...even though I came back empty handed, we found TONS of beautiful shells and we got to spend some nice mother-daughter bonding time. I am really looking forward to trying my hand at wire wrapping some of these recycled treasures from the ocean.
We truly have so much to be thankful for.

Be sure to visit Handmade Jewelry Haven's Etsy Shop!





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