The last time I went shopping in LA, I didn’t end up buying anything except for a bunch of beautiful beads at a very cool and well curated bead store on West Third next to Douglas Fir and Sigerson Morrison. I was kind of a kid in a candy shop in there with all the pretty colored strings of beads. I left with some richly colored Cherry Rose quartz, bright turquoise Amazonite and some fun talisman-like beads – an 18k gold animal tooth and a handful of amethyst  (my birthstone) crystals. I recently got around to stringing some of the Cherry Rose quartz into a necklace. I made the 18k gold tooth into a charm using some wire to add a little interest and fun and added some other light pink rose quartz I had on hand to add length as well as play in a tonal color palette. One of the first days I wore it, I had a stranger stop me on the street to tell me that the gold tooth is a very powerful good luck charm in Africa. I knew there was a reason I was attracted to it…  I am still working on putting something together with my amazonite and amethysts.

pssst – did you hear that the brilliant beyond brilliant Erica Domesek of ‘ps i made this’ just came out with a book? I can’t wait to get my hands on it. A girl after my own heart, that one. craft project lovers unite <3