Our Story

I didn't set out to start a business. I set out to clear my head.

A few years ago, I was going through a long stretch of unemployment. Needing a break from scrolling job postings and resume updates, I decided to indulge myself by visiting some NYC sites I'd always been curious about: stretches of shoreline that had once been used as dumping grounds. I've always had a thing for antiques, and as a lifelong New Yorker, I've forever been in love with old New York. My personal decor style is bohemian, somewhat eclectic, with an emphasis on one-of-a-kind pieces that no one else has. These sites were exactly my kind of rabbit hole.

I went. I went back. And kept going back.

Mudlarking is the practice of searching shorelines and riverbanks for historically discarded objects. It turned out to be exactly the thing I didn't know I needed. Between the occasional LinkedIn message check and emails I'd fire off from the beach, my hands were in the earth and my mind was somewhere else entirely.

What I was finding was unlike anything I expected. Old bottles with ornate embossing still sharp after seventy years in the ground. Sea glass worn smooth and frosted by decades of tides. Buttons. Artifacts. Things I had to look up because I didn't even know they existed.

Mudlarking hands you an object and gives you no answers. Who owned this? How did it end up here? What was their life like? History relayed in textbooks yields a predictable set of facts. This is different. This is holding something real, something that belonged to a real person, and feeling the gap between their world and yours collapse a little. It's as close to time travel as I've ever gotten. On lucky, rare occasions I've found objects with their owner's name still on them.

And underneath all of it: these things were trash. Forgotten. Buried. Beautiful objects turned into pollution, never going to see light again.

After many trips, I wondered: maybe other people would find joy in these materials the way I do.

So I opened an Etsy shop. Put up a few pieces. I was still treating it as a hobby, and honestly, selling some items would mean I could make room for more in this city apartment. Figured if nothing sold, I hadn't lost anything; I was still job searching. But something sold. And then more. People connected with the sea glass, the bottles, the idea that these objects had a story worth continuing.

Over time, a real business emerged. I taught myself SEO, photography, copywriting. I learned what buyers were looking for. I developed a process for tumbling glass, controlling the duration, the shapes, the sizes, that turned raw vintage material into something consistent and craft-ready. For certain consistent-color listings where beach-sourced volume runs short, I supplement with recycled vintage dishware; the material is different but the ethos is the same, nothing new, nothing manufactured.

I started getting custom orders from artists who needed specific pieces for specific projects, and I realized I loved being part of someone's creative vision, helping them get exactly what they had in mind. I've helped furnish drawer pulls, mosaics, and dozens of sea glass art pieces.

Eventually I built this site, a proper home for Brooklyn Sea Glass, independent of any single platform's algorithm.

The sourcing story hasn't changed. Everything still comes from the same NYC shorelines and historic landfill sites, the same mid-century and antique material that nobody else is pulling from. That provenance isn't something I can manufacture, and no competitor can replicate it. It's either real or it isn't.