Scarborough Seashells Giveaway

First of all I'd like to thank each and every one of my followers and readers for all of your wonderful support!  And  thank you so much for all of the kind comments and encouraging emails I received about my great day yesterday!!!  I really do appreciate each and every comment and email, and even if I don't get to respond to each one, please know that I do read and enjoy every last word!

So it's been a week or so since my last giveaway, and I know how you bloggy friends love a good giveaway!  So, along with a wonderful artist profile, you'll have a chance to win something too!

This month's artist profile is of a very talented jewelry artist, Tara of Scarborough Seashells!  Tara and I met very early on through blogging, and as soon as I saw the lovely things for sale on her website I immediately knew I wanted to feature her work.  Not only is Tara a super talented jewelry designer, but she is also a terrific person!

Tara's unique pieces have everything I look for in a great piece of jewelry...simplicity, one of a kind beauty, and of course a beach theme.  A true artisan, Tara skillfully incorporates seashells, sea glass, and bits of pottery found along the coast into each of her gorgeous handmade pieces of jewelry.  Along with Tara's beautiful jewelry, on her website you'll find lots of other great handmade items inspired by the beach, such as sea glass wine charms, seashell encrusted mirrors, and other home decor.  And even her logo is cool and beachy, so what's not to love!

I was able to interview Tara recently and ask her a few questions about how she started her business and what inspires her as an artist.  Below you'll find her answers along with photos of some of the breathtaking pieces of jewelry she has for sale. And you won't want to miss the beautiful earrings Tara and Scarborough Seashells, who is also a sponsor, has graciously donated as a Giveaway, so be sure to read all the way to the end of the post to find how how you can enter to win!

How long have you been designing and making sea inspired jewelry and home accessories?

I started in 2003- when I learned I was pregnant with my second son, Aidan.  I worked in a very physical field and had to go out on leave for the duration of the pregnancy.  We lived on the beach, so I took up walking in the mornings and had soon amassed huge containers of rocks, sea glass, shells etc.  After a few months of looking at piles and bowls and baskets overflowing around the house, I decided I should do something productive with all my finds and as an added bonus, make a little extra money.  That’s when Scarborough Seashells was born!

I love how you incorporate sea glass and pottery shards into your jewelry pieces, where do you find the sea glass and pottery pieces that you use?  

My first and favorite beach will always be Scarborough Beach in Narragansett, RI where we live, but over the years my family and I have found lots of great little nooks hidden away along the RI coastline.  Many we get to by the good grace of friends who allow us to “trespass” their properties to make it down to the rocky shores where there is no public access, some are only accessible at low tide and others we’ve come across by accident while clamming for our dinner!  I am so fortunate to live in the Ocean State where there is coast all around me.  I love taking day trips with my husband and discovering new beaches to hunt for glass!

Do you have a studio in your home where you make your wonderful creations?

I do.  One of the requirements when we bought our house last summer was a studio space for me to work in.  If I were not so embarrassed of the mess, I’d show it to you!  I am creative, not tidy.  Lots of times I have multiple projects going at once and am fortunate enough to have the space to accommodate them, so to visitors, it often looks like piles of junk everywhere and a mishmash of boxes, bins and tools- but I assure you I know where everything is and it does get cleaned up periodically!  One of my favorite things in my studio is a shelf that my father and grandfather made for my mother’s kitchen when I was growing up.  It holds all of my most precious pieces of sea glass and pottery in perfect little rows of canning jars, all sorted by color and size.  Sometimes when I am struggling for inspiration I will grab the jars and dump a few of them out onto my workbench and just start playing around with the pieces and  before I know it, I’ve made two or three things!

Do you have a favorite type of jewelry that you enjoy making more than others?

I think my favorite things to make are rings.  When I was learning to solder, the first thing I successfully made was a sterling silver ring, and I was hooked.  I love hammering the metal, shaping the bezels and fitting the stones.  Soldering and bezel setting is very hands-on in its basic form and I get a lot of joy knowing that the finished pieces were formed with little more than a few rudimentary tools and my own two hands.  (Although I admit that the thrill of wielding a torch capable of temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees F is pretty cool too!)

I noticed from your website that you use mostly sterling silver and that you often incorporate wire wrapping on some of your pieces, is this something that you trained yourself to do and why do you prefer working with silver rather than other metals?

Wire wrapping is something I taught myself to do (and boy, do I have some BAD beginner pieces to prove it, lol!)  When I was starting out, I browsed around on the web looking for jewelry designs I liked to use as inspiration, then I tried to figure out how they were made- which is still something I do to this day!  Whenever I have the opportunity to look at any wire wrapped jewelry in person, I zoom in to find the end piece of wire, then trace it backwards with my eyes (like doing a maze in reverse) and make an image in my head of how it’s done.  It’s very interesting to me to study the styles of different artists.  The variety is amazing!
 
Honestly, the main reason I use sterling silver is because it is my own preference for jewelry.  The only piece of gold I wear is my wedding ring.  That being said, sterling is also much more affordable than gold when learning, so mistakes are less costly.  I wish I had a more romantic answer for you!

You have so many wonderful things for sale on your website, from shell encrusted picture frames to wine glass charms, do you make everything that is for sale on your website?

I make all of the jewelry on my website but some of the home décor pieces are by other artists.  Being a mom to 3 active boys ranging in age from 4-13, I just don’t have enough time in the day to create all the gorgeous stuff I dream of making!

Where do you find inspiration? 

Most of my ideas come to me while I am walking on the beach.  It is generally the only time during the day that I am alone and not required to talk, cook, mend or care for anyone but myself.  Many times my mind wanders from random thought to random thought and something as simple as a squiggly piece of seaweed that tangles on my shoe can jar me from those thoughts and become instant inspiration for a new design.

What is your favorite part about making jewelry?

Wow, this is really hard.  I have started to answer this questions 3 times and each time erased it because it didn’t quite capture what I want to say!  I guess I just love knowing that I have taken something discarded by so many and found the beauty in it. 

Tara has offered these gorgeous sterling silver and blue pottery shard earrings to one lucky winner!  I love these, and they remind me of what the sky can sometimes look like when you're out on a boat as nighttime approaches, I can almost see a few twinkling stars can't you?!  Thank you Tara for this wonderful giveaway!


So, in order to be entered to win you'll need to:

1.  Kindly visit Scarborough Seashells Website HERE and then come back and leave a comment telling me what wonderful things you found.


2.  For a second chance to win, you can let others know about the giveaway through Facebook, Twitter, or by posting about it on your blog.  Just be sure to come back and leave another comment letting me know that you've done one of those.


3.  And for a third chance to win, leave yet another SEPARATE comment, letting me know that you are a follower.  I've tried to find a way to assign numbers to each follower so that you wouldn't have to do this, but I've yet to figure that out, so you'll need to leave me another comment letting me know if you become, or already are, a follower. 


The Giveaway will be open until Midnight, PST, Monday April 12th.  Be sure to check back on Tuesday, April 13th when the winner will be announced.