And with that clickbait headline, let's go over some jewelry I made, and some lessons you can learn from my mistakes along the way. But first, a set with which I think I was immediately satisfied after first assembling it.

Now let'a look at a problem. The first image is a bail that I quite like. It's a bit of a snug fit over the leather cord but it looks good with the pendant. I just wish the small eyelet were 90° from its orientation so I could use one less jump ring.

Here's another bail for the second dragon that looked like a good idea at the time, but is in fact far too large for the cordage I used. The scale is just all wrong. I'll need to redo this one, even though this bail links properly to the dragon with just one jump ring.

This necklace uses some round hematite beads with hollow centers sized perfectly for some odd blue beads I needed to use up. After initial assembly, I found I needed an additional jump ring for each bead and head pin pendant assembly. Now it doesn't bind up if moved, so that's a win, I think. But between the sideways photo orientation being imported here and the fluorescent lights distorting the colors, the photo remains underwhelming.

The next piece is a winged key assembly on a leather cord. Simple and effective steampunk minimalism.

Lastly, a strange pseudo-Victorian skeletal cameo with some color coordinated beads and a leather cord. Assembly was a bit fiddly here, so what do you think of the effect? Yea or nay?

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I was recently roped into helping with a youth theater costume project. I have no idea why a Robin Hood play needs a mask that looks like Paul Stanley's Starchild persona from the band Kiss. All I know is that I was asked to apply some Sharpie marker to a white mask. Here is the rather disturbing result of my efforts: