Island Made Facade Image NYTimes.com

This weekend I escaped. I threw a few lightweight dresses and cut off jeans into a bag and ran away to what is undeniably one of my favorite islands in The Bahamas, actually perhaps on this planet  - Eleuthera. 

With two Eleuthera experts as my unofficial guides, one of the first stops was Island Made - a tiny souvenir shop off of Queen’s Highway in Gregory Town. Dried coconuts brightly painted to depict smiling faces, reams of Androsia, and homemade preserves are just a few of the Bahamian made goodies to be discovered in this little gem of a store. 

I browsed the house wares and homemade gourmet delights but like a true fashion junkie, what really caught my eye was the jewelry. Glass displays housed necklaces, earrings, and bracelets fashioned out of wire and leather, adorned with sea glass gems. Kelly green, cobalt blue, white and brown sea glass, all once one man’s trash now expertly crafted into another’s treasure.

Starfish and Seafoam Green Sea Glass Necklace SilverMoonrise.com Designer - Marlee Mason (Marsh Harbor, Abaco)

The artisan just happens to be the owner of this little store - a character just as beautiful and quirky as the store itself. When asked who the designer of the jewelry was she replied – Pamela Thompson in a somewhat sarcastic tone – it took me a minute to remember she had introduced herself as Pam. 

To sea glass collectors their favorite locations for collecting their “gems” are a closely guarded secret. After a heavy storm they scour the shoreline for colorful, battered pieces of glass. All once just a vessel for something deemed more valuable, discarded into the ocean, the glass is broken and its edges smoothed by the unyielding waves creating opaque gems. 

Pam diverted my attention to the driftwood jewelry – the current hit in the store. After mastering the realm of sea glass and getting bored with it, she started crafting wonderful bohemian pieces out of driftwood. I could picture Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom hoarding these special driftwood pieces – layering them for a truly hipster chic look. Perhaps rocker Lenny Kravitz, a Governor’s Harbor frequent owns several of these driftwood gems himself.

Starfish and Seafoam Green Sea Glass Earrings SilverMoonrise.com Designer - Marlee Mason (Marsh Harbor, Abaco)

During conversation, Pam mentioned she had even experimented with sea plastic. Some of her shoreline expeditions had unearthed battered, colorful plastic pieces and old battered army green toy soldiers which she incorporated into her designs. The ocean gobbles up human trash and spits out weathered little wares that inventive locals fashion into cool jewelry. 

After my Island Made visit I was feeling especially creative. I took a walk in Rainbow Bay, Eleuthera and ventured down onto Smuggler’s Beach hoping to find some sea glass treasures of my own. Smuggler’s Beach is located on the rough Atlantic side of Eleuthera. I found a few tiny pieces of glass, nothing substantial enough to warrant bringing back home to Nassau – so I tossed them back into the ocean for some other sea glass hunter and proceeded to scour for shells.

It all took me back to my childhood growing up in Golden Gates. On the weekends my father would haul myself, my siblings and my grandmother off to the beach. While my grandmother collected dried seaweed for her garden, I collected baskets of shells to make my own shell necklaces. My father would drill the tiniest holes into the delicate shells, often cracking many before I had enough to string up a suitable necklace on fishing line - ne of the simple joys of growing up on an island, with little money but lots of creativity.

Perhaps it’s my inner hipster, but every piece of jewelry that has ever meant anything sacred to me has been handmade from natural gems from our islands. In high school, a young love gingerly carved a heart out of a conch shell strung onto a piece of leather string. I wore that shell diligently every day until ironically one summer I lost it on a beach adventure in you guessed it – Eleuthera.

If you’re ever in Eleuthera – it’s a must you visit Island Made and claim your own sea glass or drift wood beauty. A simple Google search will reveal lots of special places to find hand made sea glass pieces all around the Bahamas. Or if you’re looking for a DIY project this summer, maybe you’ll be inspired to search out your own island gems and create a masterpiece all your own.