Karen Tweedie draws inspiration for her oyster jewelry in sights other tourists often overlook. In her travels throughout the Mediterranean, often on cruises, she has taken countless photographs while touring a port of call. These intriguing designs and carvings — ones that are nondescript to others, she finds immediately engaging — are found in objects such as iron fences and sewer caps.

“Something always catches my eye,” Tweedie said.

These discoveries set the stage for the seemingly endless hours she’ll spend forging, casting, soldering and cleaning in her expansive home studios in Onancock, VA and Daytona Beach, FL.

Tweedie’s work eventually comes full circle, as exquisite oyster-shell earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. Most feature cultured Asian pearls, which have become especially popular recently among fellow cruise passengers.

But on the late-July afternoon she spoke with Coastal Style about her decades of Eastern Shore-inspired sterling-silver designs, Tweedie glanced toward her works-in-progress scattered across the workbench.

“These are a very diverse group of projects,” she said, “ranging from an 18-karat gold and large diamond 50th anniversary ring to manzanita branches I was just cutting and sanding. These will be components in other jewelry I’m creating for a gallery opening.”

For Tweedie, no two pieces are alike, just as with the pearls that serve as centerpieces for her popular oyster jewelry designs.

Tweedie has added to her local heritage collection in her seahorse designs, called Chesapeake Bay ponies, in honor of the famous horses that live on Assateague and Chincoteague Islands, after learning that seahorses live in the Chesapeake Bay. “Those also have been very popular,” she said. “They’re whimsical and fun.”

Along with successful sales on cruise ships and online, Tweedie’s works appear in Red Queen Gallery in Onancock and soon may be displayed at a new jewelry store opening in nearby Cape Charles. But passion — not profit — drives Tweedie to continue finding beauty in what others ignore.

“It’s really fun to do. I have a blast doing it,” she said.