How It All Began

We are two creative friends who reside on beautiful Vancouver Island, BC, Canada; Cheryl in Nanaimo and I (Micki) in the Coombs area.  Cheryl and I create handmade, one-of-a-kind seaside treasures.  

Our adventure began with me making a beach-themed ornament for the Nanaimo Arts Council Gallery's Christmas table in 2008.  They sold like hotcakes so Cheryl and I got to thinking that we ought to co-create more of them, which led us to opening an online gift shop on Etsy.com.  I tossed around a million possible names for our new shop but could not decide on one.  That's when Cheryl piped up, "How about A2Sea Creations?" to which I replied, "Oh sure.  I work on a name forever and you come up with a perfect one just like that?"  Anyhow, A2Sea Creations it became.

 

What began with one ornament, soon ballooned into whatever our creative brains could think up; from ‘Nautical Notepads’, to ‘Mermaid Treasure Pendants’, 'Seaside Treasure Boxes’ to the ever-popular ‘Message in a Bottle’ and so much more.   Before we knew it, we had shelves and shelves full of various seaside treasures!  

 

At the beginning of our venture, Cheryl and I worked at my kitchen table.  This was far from ideal as my kitchen was soon taken over by seashells, driftwood, raffia, sea glass, moss, sand... you name it.  What a mess!  It was clear that we needed to figure out a better solution.  So my rarely-used guest room became our craft room.  We purchased several tall, inexpensive bookshelves, a long, fold-up work table and we were set to go.  However, I began to miss having that extra guest room, so eventually, we moved everything out to our workshop and my hubby bought us a heater, so we wouldn't freeze to death in the wintertime. 

Cheryl and I have a sort of ritual, you could say.  She comes here in the morning, once a week, and I put on the coffee and bring out the Bailey's.  (It's never too early for Bailey's, right?)  We listen to 70’s music and sing along to all the words that we remember (which aren’t many).   We always have fun working together, coming up with new creations and planning our next adventures.

 

We take pride in the fact that we use primarily local, organic, recycled  & eco-friendly materials.  We do our own beachcombing, although we do throw in a few seashells from around the world, from time to time.   We also use sea glass, driftwood, tiny starfish, fish netting, moss, seaweed, sand, wood, recycled glass, raffia and beads.  It is not unusual to see my kitchen sink filled with seashells and my oven with drying seaweed.   Many interesting aromas tend to waft out of my kitchen!  Cheryl and I are in love with the ocean so it only stands to reason that we would enjoy working with natural materials the ocean provides.  

 

Cheryl and I sell our products online in our Etsy store at A2SeaCreations.com.  We also have our nautical creations at several local gift shops such as Newfoundland to Nanaimo, the Parksville Tourist Centre and the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre.  I am also a photographer and sell my work in another Etsy shop: SingingPhotographer.  Plus, I just recently opened another online gallery: www.thesingingphotographer.com

 

Cheryl and I will likely keep creating for as long as we are able.  Now that Cheryl travels to her 'winter home' and lives there several months of the year, we don't work together as often as we used to, so we really enjoy catching up and creating together when she comes home.  We don't really know what the future has in store for us but we both tend to live in the moment as much as we can, enjoying our friendship and the process.