My parents have had a house in Cape May Point, NJ for years and we spent many summers enjoying the beaches in Cape May Point. One of our favorite activities to do is to comb the beaches for treasures. For years and years our family looked for tumbled glass on the beach and we used to come home with buckets full. So much that my little sister filled an entire fish bowl jar full of tumbled glass and donated it to the museum that is by the Cape May Point Lighthouse. Those days are now long gone, as I can only find a few pieces here and there every time I go down, and most of the pieces are so tiny, not sure I can do much with them.

I was telling my father how rare it is these days to find tumbled glass on the beaches down there and he told me that he still had a bunch of glass that we all collected over the years that he had saved. All of the glass was collected off the beaches at Cape May Point which amazes me when you see how much of it there is! Its hard to believe that all of this glass was collected over 17 years of being down in Cape May Point and this is not even half of what they have around the house in jars and what was donated to the museum.

Our family really loves combing the beaches and it seems like I am passing that tradition right back to my own daughter as she has been a big helper this year with collecting all sorts of beach treasures. Keep checking our Cape May Jewelry line as I was busy this past weekend wire wrapping additional sea glass that I had just found over the weekend as well as some of the clam shells we polished up and a bunch of jingle shells we found!

Its been a few weeks since I posted about the clam shells (wampum-like colors) we collected and I busted up and tumbled. I encountered a serious set back a few weeks ago in which I just could not get the shells to take a final polish. I tried adding more polish to my mix in the tumbler and still after another week, I only got thinner shells (yikes!). So doing a little surfing on the web I read about polishing sea beans (not even sure what those are?) and it said to use walnut shells and tin oxide polish. So, I found a place that sells walnut shells and tin oxide and as soon as I received them, the shells went in. I was so shocked to see that it is actually working and the shells almost have a mirror polish to them just as I had hoped! I am letting them go in the tumbler for another day or so (so far they have been going for a week) but should be able to get these shells in some pieces by next week. Keeping watching the site for the shells and once they are done, I’ll post a picture.