{"id":235519,"date":"2012-03-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/beach-glass-bingo-showcases-at-philadelphia-flower-show\/"},"modified":"2012-03-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T07:00:00","slug":"beach-glass-bingo-showcases-at-philadelphia-flower-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/beach-glass-bingo-showcases-at-philadelphia-flower-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach Glass Bingo showcases at Philadelphia flower show"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego jewelry makers have roots in Hawaii<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Margie M. Palmer | Downtown News<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Beach<\/a>
Rex Nockengust of Beach Glass Bingo (Photo by Margie Palmer)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The largest indoor flower show in the world blooms in Philadelphia every March, and this year, the owners of San Diego\u2019s Beach Glass Bingo traveled the 3,000 miles to participate.<\/p>\n

The annual Philadelphia International Flower Show has been a tradition since 1829; since then it has evolved from a gathering of professional growers showcasing their prized plants to the largest and oldest indoor flower show in the nation.\u00a0Many of the country\u2019s premier landscape designers and florists are featured, turning the 10 acres of exhibit space into a floral fantasy world with exotic plants and designs.<\/p>\n

Beach Glass Bingo co-owners Gene Allen and Rex Nockengust said they believe the theme of the 2012 show, \u201cHawaii: Islands of Aloha,\u201d was why they were invited to participate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a marketplace that\u2019s incorporated into the show,\u201d Nockengust said. \u201cWhen we applied [to participate], we were told there was a 10-year waiting list, but since this year\u2019s theme was Hawaii and since we make stuff out of beach glass, we were able to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nockengust and Allen started their business in Hawaii. \u201cGene and I had been living in New York before we relocated,\u201d to the islands, Nockengust said. \u201cWhen we got there we realized we were starving for artistic expression.\u00a0We would go to the beach every day and started picking up beach glass. Eventually we realized that we had so much of it we should start doing something with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Beach Glass Bingo was born.\u00a0The business partners, who are also a couple, said their venture had simple beginnings, with the two mostly making what they referred to as \u201csurfer-dude necklaces.\u201d As business expanded, they hired a sales representative and began attending trade shows.<\/p>\n

As time passed, Allen said, they realized they were spending a lot of money flying to and from the mainland that moving to San Diego made sense. \u201cWe landed here in 2007 and shipped 38 flat rate boxes of beach glass with us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had an entire bathtub full in our studio in Hawaii.\u00a0It was everywhere and we figured we\u2019d need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple was hopeful they\u2019d continue to find beach glass along the San Diego coast, but quickly learned abundance was lacking. They have since hired three people in Hawaii to collect beach glass for the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at their mercy,\u201d Allen said. \u201cMany times we need pieces that are a certain shape and color in order to complete a piece of jewelry.\u201d However, not being able to go to the store and buy materials, Allen said, forces them to be creative and “not make the same things over and over again.”<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWe need to use what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beach Glass Bingo jewelry makes simple rings and earrings to intricate necklaces.\u00a0Nockengust said some pieces take as little as 15 minutes to create, whereas others can take up to 15 hours, once they have the right pieces of beach glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one necklace that we made that has nine pieces of glass,\u201d Nockengust said.\u00a0\u201cIt may take two months to find all the pieces that are just smooth enough and that are the right shape and size.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nockengust said while the majority of their business comes from sales at art and trade shows, they are also featured in downtown businesses. Currently, Silver Crossing, at the Seaport Village located at 823 W. Harbor Dr., carries a selection of their work. \u201cThey have been a huge support of us for a very long time,\u201d Nockengust said.<\/p>\n

Allen said the dynamic of working as both business partners and a couple works just fine. \u201cWe\u2019ve been together for 21 years, and working together just really works for us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky that we\u2019re able to be together 24\/7.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Diego jewelry makers have roots in Hawaii By Margie M. Palmer | Downtown News The largest indoor flower show in the world blooms in Philadelphia every March, and this year, the owners of San Diego\u2019s Beach Glass Bingo traveled the 3,000 miles to participate. The annual Philadelphia International Flower Show has been a tradition […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":235520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Beach Glass Bingo showcases at Philadelphia flower show","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}