some things are just worth waiting for...

Some of you may remember talk on the blog of the legendary Etsy Metal charm swap. The original idea came from Experimetal - you can see her natural ability for utterly brilliant ideas when you look at her work, and this idea was one of the best. Ever. No, seriously, I'm not exaggerating.

One of the things about being part of a team stuffed to the gills with such amazingly talented people is - you get like a kid in a sweet shop (candy store ;)). Where do you start? How can you choose what to buy? Me, I get totally short-circuited when I try to go jewellery shopping and end up with a wish list that's longer than my arm. Experimetal's idea was a charm bracelet, with charms from many members of the team. Each participating member made enough charms for all of the other members - plus one... They were all sent to one member to co-ordinate; and once they were all there, they were divvied up and each participant received one of each - including their own.

And this is the amazing collection that came through fifteen letter-boxes:



Aren't they just incredible?!

And - those "one extra" charms? Elizabeth Scott hand-fabricated a beautiful sterling chain for them, strung them - and made this:



- which is available for sale in the Etsy Metal etsy shop - HERE

It is an astonishing, astonishing piece of wearable art; a real collector's piece. Fifteen pieces from metalsmiths of this caliber all in one place is something that just doesn't happen every day. Represented here are:

howlindoggie, ashleyjewelry, ninagibsondesigns, downtothewiredeigns, ninadinoff, maggiejs, themusesjewels, sudlow, kismet designs, discomedusa, alphabettispaghetti, experimetal, (the instigator herself!) nyhedy, esdesigns and bcyrjewelry

and it really is a once in a lifetime one-off. Although... this was the charm swap Mark I. We enjoyed it so much that there are charms swaps Marks II and III in the pipeline.

Aren't you amazed? We're amazed! And those metalworkers above? They're amazing.