By Maryann Carroll
Right now I am in Three Oaks, Michigan visiting my sister and family. We are staying in the quaint little cottage that they reserve for guests. This time we took the train from Syracuse, NY. That was an experience all in itself and one we will be better prepared for when we head back for our 12 plus hour ride in the middle of the night. I would highly recommend that if you travel by train that you bring along a neck pillow if it will be a long ride. Other than being inexperienced with Amtrak, however, it was definitely something that I would do again.
I bet many of you bead collectors out there also love to collect or are interested in other little finds. One of my favorite things to do when we come here is looking for beach stone and glass. I don't have any Lake Michigan pictures to share since they are on my phone over at my sister's, but I had planned ahead and mailed this one to myself yesterday.
This was like I died and went to heaven when we found ourselves at low tide on Rocky Beach.
I could be here all day!!! These were all freshly being washed in from the waves.
I am not sure how I plan to use what I collect when I am here, but knowing that they are always available if I want to use them in jewelry designs is always good, right?
Here is the beginning of my stash. I plan to spend many more hours combing the beach for more.
And in the meantime, I think I might steal my sister Colleen's idea with displaying them. These are old typesetter boxes that can be found at antique shops or, if you are lucky, barn sales, garage sales, etc. That's another thing that I love to do in my free time..... You never know what you might find!
So, today we are off to a few sales around town and probably to the beach later on. The great thing about some of the beaches around here are that they are small and the ones with lots of stones are not the popular ones!
So, do you use natural stones in you designs? I have not used too many even though I have many from my many trips here. We all know that Staci is a big beach glass designer. I did not see lots of beach glass here, but from the looks of Colleen's collection, obviously, there is :o)
Time to get ready and head out :o)
And..... as always, thank-you for supporting artists who create handmade with handmade.
MaryAnn
3 comments:
I am officially jealous! Lake Michigan has some of the most colorful stones.
I absolutely use natural stones in my jewelry, and fossils too, which are in that area. I also LOVE the blue slag glass from Lake M, although, technically it is originally manmade, but then beautified by nature.
Bt the way, wood fired beads go really great with natural stones ;)
Enjoy your trip!
Ooooooh!!! I wanna go to that beach!!!!
I love using beach stones!
As of yet, I have not made any jewelry of natural stones. After I found a few really beautiful ones at the local lake and streams, I decided to start looking for ways to drill them and found all sorts of wonderful tutorials. I am also learning wire weaving and want to capture them in "baskets."
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