Resident Turns Beach Glass into 'Treasures by the Sea' Jewelry

When Granby resident Amy Geigner and her sister were little girls, their mother, Ollie King, would take them on beach excursions and tell them to find “go find treasures.”

Little did Geigner and King know that over 20 years later, the resulting trove of sea glass and stones would turn into a cottage industry in the form of “Treasures by the Sea” jewelry, which they started about six months ago and currently run out of their homes.

“When we were thinking of a name for the business, we thought it was very fitting,” Geigner, a graduate and former field hockey player, said. “We have something like 50 or 60 years worth of glass [in King’s garage]. It’s a quick hobby, people love it, so we started a business.”

Geigner — who makes pendants and bracelets out of the glass using silver wire, copper, leather, beads and stones — is the “creative genius” behind the operation, according to King.

“I’m not a jewelry nut, but I like cool stuff,” Geigner, who teaches farm education at Auer Farm in Bloomfield, said of what inspires her in a recent interview. “I don’t want to wear something the chick next to me is wearing, too.”

And the stuff is nothing if not cool.

Every piece is unique, incorporating sea glass of various hues, including brown, green, blue and red, among others.

“I can get a Pandora bracelet and every single person in town is going to have one,” Geigner said. “If you get something from us, it’s never ever the same piece. That’s what’s cool about it.”

The glass is also unadulterated.

“I don’t touch it at all,” Geigner said. “It’s not tumbled like other retail outlets. It doesn’t look as authentic.”

And every piece has a back story of some sort.

Geigner, for example, calls the brown and green glass shades “Budweiser” and “Heineken,” respectively, because they tend to come from broken beer bottles that washed ashore or came from a beach party.

Then there the some pieces, such as the blue or red glass with bubbles in them, that Geigner calls “super rare.”

“A piece that has a pattern on it with bubbles means that it's old, because glass making had not been perfected,” Geigner said. “You don’t see that very often. It’s cool to think about where the glass has come from and what it was used for.”

The jewelry is also intensely personal for several reasons.

The first one is fairly obvious: Geigner says that she will not make a piece unless she is inspired.

“I have to get into the mood,” she said. “It’s creative. You aren’t going to get the same style of everything.”

Then there’s another level: King, who works in the Simsbury school system, says that she can visualize where she was when she found virtually every piece that Geigner uses in the jewelry.

“I feel close to every piece,” King said.

Most pieces are priced between $18 and $60, depending on the rarity of the glass and the amount of time it took to make.

Upon a sale, a piece is wrapped in an organza bag that matches the color of the glass it contains.

“It’s just different,” King said.

Geigner also is working on what she calls a “guy” line — sea glass pieces incorporated with leather for men.

Customers talk about the difficulty they have when they buy Treasures by the Sea pieces.

“They’re all so beautiful, it’s hard to determine which one I wanted,” said Simsbury resident Bonnie Tyler, who wound up purchasing five pendants from King. “I’m a lover of sea glass and [Geigner] uses everything from nature, and it’s just exquisite. I love the idea that with it is a combination of the old and the new. Some [of the pieces] have glass that’s over 100 years old. It’s just so unique.”

Geigner and King have been doing personal sales as well as hitting the sidewalk fair circuit to market their wares. For more information on the jewelry, email King or Geigner at treasurebythesea@aol.com.

Correction: This article was corrected to change the name of Geigner's place of employment to Auer Farm. The Granbys Patch regrets the error.