Custom work + works in progress

I've been neglecting my Etsy shop ever since we got back from our anniversary trip to Vegas - I know, the most romantic place :). For the last week or so I've mostly been working on custom orders that sort of all came at once for some reason. I just finished up an order for a bride and her bridesmaids yesterday and have one more custom order (cuff links for a wedding!) that I will get to next week. Check out a few favorite custom pieces from the week...

But, that's not all I've been doing! I do have some new designs in the works! I usually only work on a few new things at once, but I was feeling like my shop was stale and I have so many new stones that I'm dying to work with, so I started a whole bunch of new work at once. I'm not sure if it's the amount, or just that I'm trying to work faster and trying things I haven't done before, but I've had a few super annoying moments of bezel melting, the bezel not fully soldering to the backplate, hard to set stones (oh, that one was bad - my arms were sore the next day), and things like that. Not that those things never happen, but they feel like they have been happening way more this week and sucking my time away...right when I'm dying to finish some things so I can get them photographed and up in my shop.

I WILL share new goodies soon! In the meantime, here's my pile of stones right after making all the bezels the other day. My bench is a disaster now - glad I took this photo before it got out of control...