Summer brings some pretty low daytime tides to Witter Beach. On the most extreme days, our beach stretches out more than two hundred yards from the bulkhead — pretty amazing and endless exploration for human and dog alike.

Over the last two years there’s been a resurgence of starfish and sand dollars out on the sand bars. On those low tide days, a few babies get stranded in the sun and dry out — bummer for them but amazing little treasures for me.

I’ve wanted to make some jewelry with these finds for quite a while, and finally got around to it over the last couple of weeks. The final product isn’t perfect by any means (my sausage fingers were not made for fine work), but I love it nevertheless. A ton of neat new techniques to learn along the way!

I’m a big fan of dangly earrings, despite the fact that Lara doesn’t wear them much (she does have other positive qualities). The plan was to embed the ocean goodies in clear resin within circular frames, then link the circles together into a dangle.

Alder Circles

The Glowforge was the obvious tool to cut out the wooden circles; it can make remarkably precise and small cuts. The only thing was, I really didn’t want to buy wood — my whole vibe here is things I can fabricate from the natural world (ok, findings are an exception and we’ll get there).

The good news is I have a nearly unlimited supply of Red Alder from the bluff and beach. It’s on the soft end of the hardwoods, but that’s fine — makes it a bit easier to work with. I had a nice little chunk from a tree that was cut in 2023 (part of the bluff maintenance balance… trees are awesome at sucking up water, but if they get too big they act like sails in the wind).

I wanted a height of about an eight of an inch, maybe 3/16ths. For strength and appearance I wanted the grain to run with the plane of the circle. The band saw is the obvious tool for this, but I struggle to get truly parallel cuts out of mine. Granted, it was super-cheap.

Anyways, I was able to break the piece down into small enough pieces to cut into strips with my table saw. A trick for small strips: lower your blade and put a piece of blue painters tape over the hole. Turn on the saw and slowly raise the blade so that it cuts through the tape. This gives you “zero clearance” protection so that tiny cuts don’t get sucked down into the saw and destroyed.

A light sanding on each side, a little Unicorn Spit, and these were good to go. I’m always tempted to throw in a little video of the Glowforge in action because it’s so cool, but I will be restrained today. In short: laser cutting is super-awesome and it’s almost impossible to obtain such precise results any other way. I am in awe of what some folks can do on a scroll saw, but that ain’t me.  

Eye Pins (i.e., an excuse to buy more tools)

Next up I needed to attach little metal eyes to the circles so I could link them together. I found the perfect little wire eye pins, but needed a way to attach them securely without breaking the tiny bits of wood. My heavily-retail solution:

1. An awesome hand-turned drill with eeeensy little bits.
2. A nice set of jewelry pliers and tweezers.
3. The coolest head-mounted magnifier ever (I actually already had this one, originally for cleaning up small 3D printer supports).

With all of this kit I was able to drill pilot holes, cut down the pins, and maneuver them into place with the smallest little drops of CA glue. Not the sexiest part of the build, but honestly kind of my favorite — a much more professional look than I expected to get.

UV Resin

I’ve done a lot of work with two-part epoxy resin. It’s super for coating tabletop pieces, turning projects, coasters, filling gaps in damaged wood … a lot of stuff. But for a tiny jewelry project it’s a bit cumbersome — getting the ratio right in small quantities is tough, and curing time is painfully long.

This project was a great opportunity to try UV resin instead. Lara uses a version of it on her fingernails; basically it’s clear liquid that hardens within minutes under UV light. I got this starter kit from Amazon that includes the resin and a light with a timer.

It took me a few tries to get the technique right — I wanted the ocean bits to be fully encased in resin inside the circles with no/minimal overspill. The magic here turned out to be plain old clear packing tape:

1. Put a piece of tape sticky-side up on the table and press the circle onto it.
2. Add just enough resin to coat the bottom of the circle.
3. Cure for 3 minutes on one side, then flip and 2 on the other.
4. Flip again, add the item, and drip in enough resin to cover. Make sure that the item is fully covered and not hiding any bubbles underneath.
5. Cure again for 3 minutes on one side, then flip and 2 on the other.
6. Remove the tape. If it leaves any adhesive residue, clean with Goo Gone.

The tape makes a leak-proof seal that contains the first layer of resin, but is easily removed at the end. Flipping the piece ensures that the light hits all of the resin equally, which is key to getting a solid cure.

The really neat thing about this material is that it locks in place almost immediately when the UV light hits it. So if I want to, say, ensure that an item stays in the center of the circle, I can hold it in place with the tip of a pin, turn on the light and by the time I remove the pin it’s not going anywhere. Woot!

Assembly!

OK, at this point I had four circles filled with resin, each with eye pins ready for connecting. Simple earring hooks and open jump rings were cheap and easy to work with (thanks again to my magnifier, would have taken me forever without that).

I’m pretty pleased with the end result. My brother’s kids are coming to the beach in a few weeks and I’ll definitely use the same techniques with them — maybe for a backpack or luggage charm. Or add some seaglass and it’d make a beautiful mobile. Too many fun projects!