I remember when I started buying sea glass. Some people I know thought I was out of my mind. Why would you want to do that? What will it do to your profit margin?
Why would you want to do that? This is easy to answer. It’s because I wanted to start creating a higher quality of jewelry and the local sea glass I was finding just wasn’t cutting it.
This is beautiful sea glass from Seaham Beach, England, called End of Day glass or English Multi’s.
I love nothing more than walking the beach, or wading in a river searching for sea glass. While I am lucky to live in an area where I find a good amount of sea glass, the problem is that if I am lucky I might get 1-2 pieces out of 10 that I consider jewelry worthy. And then, usually only marginally jewelry worthy at that. Most pieces are not beautifully smoothed and frosted. When using sea glass that has rougher edges and nicks and mars in the surface, most people resort to using a lot of wire wrapping and beading to cover up these imperfections, and I did the same.
Also, most of the colors, as in the case in lots of areas around the world, were white, green and brown. Not very exciting to use. I wanted to start using sterling silver necklaces and earring wires and my local sea glass just didn’t measure up to this.
Also, “time is money”. My bottom line is that I want to create jewelry and I need sea glass to do it. I could spend three to four hours searching in the river or on the beach and come up with very few pieces for jewelry. After a while it didn’t make sense. I was spending lots of time and not finding glass to use for jewelry.
The sea glass that has become my particular favorite is sea glass from Seaham Beach, England. It’s called End of Day glass or referred to as English Multi’s. (That’s a discussion for another post). There is also fabulous pastel sea glass from this location. I have found reputable sellers on ebay and on etsy. Of course the sea glass pieces that are larger and more colorful cost more, but they are worth it.
This is a picture of a sea glass jewelry pendant I created with a spectacular, and what I would consider a perfect piece of sea glass from Seaham Beach. A beautiful piece of glass like this only the simplest of adornment. At the craft fair where this piece was sold I had a man come up to me to tell me what a beautiful piece of jewelry he thought this was!
What does buying sea glass do to my profit margin? I can tell you that the sales of the sea glass jewelry I have created using higher quality sea glass along with higher quality findings (sterling silver necklaces, jump rings, clasps, etc., another discussion for another post) have been very good, actually better than I though they’d be. I noticed at my last craft fair that customers didn’t mind paying a higher price for a beautifully crafted piece of jewelry using a spectacular and rare piece of sea glass.
If I was not creating sea glass jewelry would I pay for sea glass? No. I haven’t felt the desire to “collect” any of the sea glass I am purchasing. The sea glass that means the most to me is still the sea glass that I pick up in the river or on the beach.
Undoubtedly the best result of me buying sea glass is one that I had never considered. I now enjoy my sea glass searches much more than I used to because the need to find the perfect piece is gone. I am able to enjoy the overall sea glassing experience and all my finds much more.
