So, today (technically yesterday, but that’s not the point) Elizabeth and I made a pilgrammage to the Intergem Gemstone & Jewelry show in San Mateo.

On the walk from the CalTrain station to the Expo center, Elizabeth gleefully squeaked a little song: “shiny things, shiny things, we’re getting shiny, shiny things.”

On the walk back, we were both clay-footed and grumbling: “so tired. . . must have smoothie now.”

Man, was that exhausting.  The combination of all the super-bright lighting, crowds of slow-moving yet sharp-elbowed tiny old people, and row after row after row of sparkly things for looking at, my brain turned into soup.

I did pick up a few really cool things before we left (no sneaking the ingredients!  You’ll see what they were as, one by one, the new pieces come to life).  And I got one treat for myself: a lovely, deep sapphire to use on my engagement ring, since Steve proposed sans jewels, suspecting (correctly) that I’d much prefer making something myself.  I also saw a few other items I really, truly meant to buy, but, after several hours in visual-overstimulation-land, completely failed to make it back to those booths.  Like I said, brain soup.

Oh, well.  Next year in Jerusalem San Mateo, I suppose!

For now, sweet dreams.

I just completed a fairly major update of my Etsy Shop.  I added a bunch of fresh designs as well as some one-of-a-kind pieces.

My friend Alix was in town this weekend, which means I had a busy weekend full of good eats and a Saturday-night funsplotion of beer, board games and more beer culminating in rowdy charades.

Sometime after dropping kitty off for an emergency vet visit on Saturday (she’s ok!) and before the boozy geekfest of Saturday night, I managed to squeeze in a mini photo-shoot of my jewelry with Alix, a talented professional photographer, Ben, another shutterbug friend with mad skillz, and Tamara, my traffic-stopping best friend and college roommate of yore.  I say “mini” because we had, like, 20 minutes to squeeze in as many shots as possible before the sunlight was completely gone, and because Tamara and I did not know what we doing and showed up unprepared (costumes? props? huh?).  Nevertheless, Alix and Ben took buttloads of beautiful photographs.  Thanks, guys!  I love my talented friends.

I’ll be working on editing the photos and adding them to the website and Etsy store (as well as putting together a long-overdue wholesale catalog).  Here’s a teaser of things to come and you can also more pictures on my Flickr.