Sea Glass....Bugs!

This past weeked was the annual "Made in Hawaii Festival." Everything being sold was made in the Hawaiian islands including jewelry, clothing, food, furniture, art work, baby stuff, etc. You wouldn't believe how much stuff was there! There were hundreds of vendors and I walked by almost every single booth! It was so inspiring to see so much creativity under one (well two) roofs!

I could go on and on about all the wonderful things we saw but I really wanted to mention one particular booth as it relates to a previous post that I blogged about - sea glass.

While there were several booths that featured sea glass jewelry there was one booth, "Besos Creations" that featured something a bit more unique. Not only did they have jewelry but they also had chimes, bottles filled with sea glass and.....sea glass BUGS!

Of course Kailani fell in LOVE with the little bugs and HAD to have one. You can't deny the fact that they are really cute! What a creative and unique way to display sea glass! The ladies that worked there (sisters, I believe) were so nice and easy to talk to - I could've stayed and talked story with them all day! We had talked about how we had just started collecting sea glass and when they saw how Kailani loved one of their little bugs they gave her a sweet deal on it!

Kailani's been taking her bug everywhere with her!

Close up of the bug

The great thing is that they have an Etsy shop! Their Etsy shop name is Ochoa Sea Glass. Take a moment to visit if you love sea glass like we do! They even have sea glass bugs available for purchase!


I love what they say about sea glass on their profile:


"Although most pieces in our collection is jewelry quality sea glass, we do use pieces with minor blemishes or pieces with so much POWER and character, that throwing them back was not a option. With hundreds of pounds of sea glass in our inventory, it is estimated that over 80% is thrown back with hopes that we will come across them again some day."

Thank you to Besos Creations/Ochoa Sea Glass for your kindness and creativity!

Baby Makapuu - Beach Treasures

Over the weekend we went to one of our favorites spots - the tide pools at Baby Makapuu. I had been looking forward to going - we used to bring Kailani all the time but this would be Momo's first visit. It's such a wonderful place to bring your kids as the water is usually calm and if you're really careful you can walk around on the rocks and explore. You can see fish, hermit crabs, snails, sea cucumbers, and other marine life that look like they came from outer space. You're sure to find something that will make you wonder.



Years ago I used to have a collection of sea glass - glass that I had found washed up on the beach. Nothing store bought or given to me. I have no idea what happened to that small collection but now that we are back in Hawaii the girls and I will start another one. The only requirement is the glass have soft edges. Big, small, brown, green, clear....we're going to take it! For now we will just store them in a jar. Later I would love try wire wrapping a few and making them into jewelry.

This was a big chunk of glass.

Can you see "Nestle" imprinted on it?

On our little hunt for sea glass we also found some small shells as well as chips of shells. The girls want to collect those as well. Of course Momo found rocks to be equally fascinating - but we will leave those behind unless there is something incredibly unique about them!

When we came home from the beach I realized I didn't have anything to put our little treasures in so I bought some small jars from Target. Upon removing the price stickers I noticed on one of the jars there were multiple stickers (they were intact...in my pictures you can tell that I started to remove them). I started to remove them only to find......

What's that you see? Is it a Walmart sticker on the very bottom? Yes it is. And to think that I purchased the jars from Target! What's that all about?