I am so thankful to all the people in my life who enjoy my art and support me through the donations of the interesting things they find on their beach walks.

I recently told you about having a container at the market and asking for sea glass donations since my supply was getting low. I have had people showing up with contributions for me but it goes further than that. I have friends around town who have started to consciously look for things when they are out walking. Then next time they see me they are so excited to show me the treasures they found, like these two pieces of shell shown here. I have never come across a shell with this pattern on its surface so I was very excited to receive this and the color on the other piece (the picture doesn't do it justice) - it's amazing what nature creates. It’s so heart warming to know that I am in their thoughts when they see something interesting.

On my beach walk yesterday I found something I have never seen before and that is the other picture on the left of this blog. I believe it is the egg casing from something - I have no idea what. It's attached to a fine piece of orange kelp and is very delicate. I don't know that I could use it in any of my art creations because of it's delicacy but I will keep it in the event that I come up with some sort of artwork that I might be able to incorporate it into.

There are many pieces of sea glass that get washed up, more at certain times of the year but more than that there are many interesting things to find. We have found 3 turtle scales over the years and I have incorporated them into wind chimes and mobiles. I have found some pieces that I have no idea what they are. The best I can describe it is it looks like it might be a form of coral. It almost seems like it’s a worm tunnel as it has very thin walls, is hollow as if something would crawl through it and it curls around itself. One piece I found had even curled around a piece of twig .
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There are many broken pieces of shell, I believe the locals are harvesting the meat from within, so there is a particular area on the beach where I find many, many broken shells. What I wouldn’t give to see those shells before they were broken. I collect these pieces and use them as well because even the broken pieces have great characteristics. Personally, I don’t look for perfection in a shell I look for something interesting. The shell could be gnarly but that’s what makes it so unique and interesting. If I only used beautiful shells what would be the fun in that. I like to create something that causes a conversation – even if that conversation is wow look how beat up or weather worn this shell is. I wonder how old it is? I wonder how long it’s been tossing around in the sea? Or I wonder what this piece is? I wonder what kind of creature lived in this?

I love when my creations inspire conversation. 

I have a new idea in my head. It may be a complete disaster but I'm going to try it. I had to come up with this idea for making trees because I'm running out of the sizes needed and enough glass to continue to make my "stacked" trees. The idea is to lay sea glass out on plastic wrap on top of this shape that I cut out of a piece of paper. Once I have all the pieces laid out I will cover it completely with white glue and let it dry. While it's still a little flexible I fold it and place it over a cardboard cone shape to give it stability while drying. I add another coating of white glue to make it firmer and multiple layers of glue on the seam to seal it.

The thing I've come up with so far is that I can't overlap the glass because it'll just wreck the whole design when I try to wrap it into a cone shape. I'm going to lie one flat layer down side by side and then after I get it in a cone shape maybe I'll apply more layers. I'm not sure yet we'll see how it goes. 

​I'm enjoying this process - it's like working on a jigsaw puzzle.