New Location for The Ash Tree!

The Ash Tree's unique products can now be found at our new store location, 6 In The Shipyard. The new shop, now located in the recently opened Hingham Shipyard Launch at 18 Shipyard Drive in Hingham, has been a smashing success so far in the holiday season.

Though we wished we could have moved in earlier to capture more of the holiday rush, the traffic and business has been excellent. 6 In The Shipyard represents six different vendors that each bring something unique to the table, and I am proud to be doing business with them.

I have been able to contribute my online marketing knowledge in the design of a new website and blog, as well as setting up a 6 In The Shipyard Facebook Page and Twitter account. At the shop, I have all of my merchandise, and will use the venue as an experiment when designing new jewelry or pieces of art. Currently, I have my jewelry (and famous handmade earrings!), handmade books, recycled sail wallets and sail bags, embroidered necklaces, Purple Heart merchandise, seaglass rings, seaglass necklaces, and much more!

Also included in the "Six" are Dock This Way Embroidery and Design, Camilley's Closet, The Pink Poppy, Soul One One, and Sea Glass Photography. For more info, be sure to swing by the 6 In The Shipyard website to view products from each of the vendors, visit their websites, and check out the guest blogging and *wonderful web design work* provided by yours truly!

Contact me for more information!

Seaglass Rings

Seaglass Rings, $12 are one of my favorite products that I offer. They are a huge hit at jewelry parties and craft shows, because I keep them inside a real shell "bowl" where customers can try them on until they find the one that fits them. I recently had the opportunity to make a custom ring last month through an order placed on Ash Tree Creations, and wanted to remind my followers that this is a total possibility.

I use found sea glass from my collection from the Boston Islands over the years. My rings are made with silver plate wire to keep the price reasonable, and no two rings are the same. If you'd like a Custom Seaglass Ring made just for you, please contact me with your ring size and preferred sea glass color and I will hand-wrap it for you!

Seaglass Pendants

Since I just finished an order for a Custom Seaglass Ring today, I figured I'd do a quick feature on my Seaglass Necklaces that I have available. As some of you know already, I do some work with sea glass that I used to find with my family when I was younger: we literally had bags and bags of what we found on the beaches. I recently decided to try and make these memories into some beautiful jewelry pieces, by wrapping them with silver plated wire (pictured here is a "cage" wire-wrapping technique) and stringing them onto a cord.

I usually try and create a pop with a brightly colored cord, although I have done pieces that are more subtle with a black satin or woven cord. The blue that is pictured is actually suede - saw it at Michael's and couldn't resist :) These necklaces are super popular when I have jewelry shows - they add a touch of summer to any outfit.

Want to see if I have a certain color? Need a custom piece for an upcoming birthday? Pissed that I apparently didn't wear enough sunscreen earlier in the day when I modeled this piece? Let me know!

Making Art, Staying Creative: Handmade Jewelry

Ugh I've just had this nagging urge to create things recently. Maybe it's the closing of the summer, and I usually have to get creative when going back to art school: but now I've graduated. Hum. These next few months are going to be weird.

I started making jewelry by accident, actually: and still have to learn some basics of metal work and saudering. It started two years ago when I had to take full academics at Tufts University, and no art classes. Yeah, I was nervous about basically starting over my junior year at college, and after a few weeks I began to miss that creative challenge. Mostly I just needed to make...things. (I'm gesturing with my hands a lot as I write this. And yes, typing too. Call THAT skill.)

Lately, I've been doing most of my jewelry work when I go out on the boat. Maybe because I've become obsessed with keeping busy all the time. Also, I find that being away from the computer gives me a great opportunity and time to be creative, and the boat functions as kind of a "studio".

This is me working on the boat, (modeling my own pair of really cool Chandelier Earrings, $12, with freshwater pearls, I may add! Below is my current offering of earrings on my earring rack) and I'm going through a ring sizer that I have. This is basically a chain with different size hoops and determine your ring size, and this is especially helpful when I'm making my Sea Glass Rings. I find some sizes are more popular than others, but try to at least include one of every size.

I've also had this overwhelming need to paint, and I haven't done that for about three years. I sort of got "painted out" after sophomore year, as after high school I wanted to do and perfect the only thing I knew how: paint. So I took basically every painting class offered at the Museum School of Fine Arts, and as a result I got frustrated: not really sure why. My palette was becoming muddy, and I couldn't get the colors I wanted - or, the colors everyone else wanted. 

So I think painting will make a comeback. Maybe some small canvases, then working bigger to maybe paint some Italian landscapes to hang in my new apartment. Let's see how it goes.

SMFA Sidewalk Sale!

So I've signed up for the SMFA Sidewalk Sale, which takes place this year May 7th and 8th, 9:00-5:00. We set up on the street right next to the school, Museum Road, across from the MFA on Huntington.

It's really cool, there are tables with art from all over the school's majors and departments, usually reasonably priced - just before Mother's Day! How totally perfect is that?! :D


As for what I'll be selling this year: I've got my famous embroidered necklaces that I'm trying to move, so ALL EMBROIDERED NECKLACES are selling for $5.00 this year so I can get some fresh designs! I also have my reasonably priced earrings for $10.00, and some wire necklaces, bracelets, and sea glass rings. And, as always, now is your chance to get your own sail wallet for $30! I've also got the other sail canvas products, sea glass mirrors, and handmade cards.

Additionally, I'm introducing some products I made in my classes this semester that I'm really excited about. First off, I've got really cool ceramic pendants for necklaces that are glazed with these beautiful hues and colors that are worth checking out. I've also got some handmade journals that I LOVED making in my Book Arts class.

So come stop by and see me!!

Trip to Bermuda - "Hey, I can make that – and cheaper!"

So my family and I went on vacation to Bermuda last year, and this was about the time where I was getting interested in looking for jewelry inspirations. Bermuda has a lot of turisty stuff, but it also has a very unique style. They just LOVE shells, bright colors, and big dangly things. Which was perfect, because I'm all over that stuff.

So I returned home to the lovely weather of Boston, Massachusetts armed with new ideas. First of which was the dangly necklace, already pictured in the previous post. Second were seaglass rings. (p.s., I write seaglass as 1 word but apparently it's two. Sorry.) I saw a local artisan making them, but she was using sterling silver wire and wrapping them in a really complicated way. So I studied them, tried them on, and was confident that I could make a similar design (without copying, of course!) with silver plate wire and my own wire-wrapping style.




















For those who condemn me - I heard an applicable quote once last year at art school about replicating paintings, in other words, learning to paint by painting masterpieces: " In 'copying' a master of art, it is really impossible to replicate the piece exactly; a little bit of you always shows through."

I had a ton of seaglass from when I was younger and my family and I would go out on our boat and collect seaglass from the Islands around Boston (i.e., Portuguese Cove was GREAT for that!). I still have a LOT more. But anyway, I'm selling them off at $12 each (sometimes $10 if you catch me at a lucrative art sale and in a good mood :) which is a great price! And I just ordered a ring sizer from Nile Corp jewelry supply, so I can get a more accurate idea of what are the more popular sizes - I made a great deal of rings before the 2009 Sidewalk Sale this year, and sold a bunch, but at the last few sales I've had, people have said that I do not have their size. So bear with me!