After a while, I found myself bored with it. It seemed that my necklaces all looked alike. I found the repetition and routine, which I used to love, lacked the stimulation it once did. I developed callouses on my fingers. It wasn’t fun anymore. So I stopped and started looking for my next big love.

It’s been a long time since I’ve played with pearl knotting. Since then, I’ve seen tons of beautiful new ideas and designs with pearls and silk. I may just give it a try once again… Everything deserves a second try, I say.

How about you – have you ever fallen out of love with a technique?

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! You can start at any time.

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That doesn’t mean that I’ve been doing nothing, though! Check out the earrings I just finished for one of my customers:

Much darker than the pair of earrings they are modeled after, but as far as I’m concerned, they are even more captivating and exotic. Can’t wait to hear back from her when she sees them!

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As I’m sure you already know, I am back. Dragon*Con was such a blast. I think this is the best time I’ve had in all the years I went, because not only did I get to enjoy my 3 days there with my best friend, J, I also got to see it through the eyes of a close friend who has only been but one time. It was a great reminder of that first-time wide-eyed feeling that you slowly lose over the years.

So, if you visit my Flickr site, you’ll find a new set titled Dragon*Con 2008. I only took a few hundred photos while there, so I’m being rather slow in getting them cropped, cleaned and uploaded. They are getting posted in about batches of 10.

In the meantime, feel free to browse the photos that I was able to take with my ever so crummy camera. There was plenty of dSLR envy that weekend on my part. The good thing is that I got J to agree to let me spend $1200 on a dSLR instead of a steampunk arm piece. Hope is what keeps me happy. ;)

Today, with all the fires in the wake of my return put out, I decided to do a little bit of catching up with the jewelry business. Among the things I picked back up was my destashing project…that’s #12 on my 101 List. I took some time to process a few more supply photos to post on the RockStash Etsy site. I hope you find something here you can put to good use:

Did any of my readers go to Dragon*Con themselves? Let me know! I would love to read your blog entries on the Con.

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I haven’t written one in a long time, but as you can see, once I got started I couldn’t stop. This week has clearly given me fodder for the art:

Then it was my time
But it was taken from me
For now I must wait

Many hopes dreams gone
Echoes are all that remain
Of what could have been

I wait eagerly
The next opportunity
Time passes slowly

Overwhelmed so much
Hard to break the news to all
How do I move on

One day at a time
No more, no less to survive
Soon it will have passed

So I know all that was a little bit depressing. I am up and down myself. Bear with me a bit…I promise to make an effort to keep my grieving off the blog…mostly. :/

In the meantime, let me leave you with some eye candy lest you run screaming in the opposite direction:

These earrings are called Spice Market. Lovely chandeliers I made sometime last month while inspired by perusing one of my favorite photographer’s Flickr feeds. I enjoyed making these so much, that I think I’m going to start an “Inspired” series based on photographs or whatever else inspires me as I come across them. I expect the series to be really good. :)

I’ll be posting these on the site sometime next week.

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I’ve already made a pendant component with one of the tassels. This mother of pearl black shell disc was selected specifically for it’s yellowish tones. Around it, I created a secure frame accented with gold-filled rounds, to which I attached the tassel. It came out quite nice. I’m just waiting for my order of chain to come in this month to finish of the piece.

However, I have these other tassels that aren’t all nice and straight like the first one I used. I don’t want to throw them away because they are rather nice and can be much more so if tamed. Does anyone know how I would go about straightening tassels?

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Recently, I mentioned that I had a customer ask me to recreate a criss cross bangle into a ring. After spending several days in search of uniform 4mm freshwater pearls in various colors, I finally decided to abandon my quest and move forward with other suitable solutions – in this instance, Swarovski pearls.

The first thing to tackle was getting an array of colors for the ring. Swarovski traditionally selects more muted and toned down colors for their pearls than what I originally used for the cuff. Since I wanted to make sure that I had colors that matched each other in tone and saturation, I bought 9 different strands of Swarovski pearls to play with. I’m glad I did as some of the pearls I originally selected would not have worked well with each other! Luckily, I already had the gold pearls from a long ago project.

After selecting 6 colors to work with, I have to say I’m very happy with the outcome of the ring. It’s absolutely beautiful and I will definitely be adding it to the listing of available rings made-to-order.

(As an after thought, it occurred to me that this would be a great post for this week’s Etsy Bloggers Street Team theme of Carnival of Colors, hosted at Bead Jewelry by ShopGirl. So there you have it!)

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So, without further ado and as the topic of the week for the Etsy Blogger’s Street Team, I present to you my latest collection- “Brassy”:

Each piece in this collection will focus on a single color accented by the brass element (with very few exceptions.)

I’ve already posted some of the pieces on this website, however, I just started posting the collection at my Etsy store. While I know you should never, ever, EVER compete on price, I’m secretly hoping the lower price point will renew other’s interest in my shop.

Like I said, I did buy a lot of components. (I have no idea how I would possibly use all of those in one collection!) So you may see a few of the components I didn’t use in any of the designs being sold at my