Once we realized that vintage jewelry and finds at estate sales and flea markets would keep growing as passions in our lives, we needed a name for our adventures.

“Dreambox” was part of some of the initial ideas, as homage to the creations that first fueled our passion, but none of those early ideas rang true. Other ideas played on “links” or “chains” or “circles,” because of their connections both to jewelry and to life in general. We also thought about invoking the names of our cats — Phoebe and Sebastian — because, well, what’s not to like about those names, when you think vintage?!

But nothing seemed quite right.

Early one Saturday morning, I surveyed the mess that my board had become.

Mainly just to clean it up, I decided to piece together a necklace drawing only from the beads, bits of chain, random findings and random stuff that was already on the board. No plan, no centerpiece or particular beads in mind. Just the serendipity of how what was already there might fit together, in an unstructured sort of way.

I liked the result. I didn’t love it. But the process was fun and the result was interesting enough. (Though I do have to fix that jump ring in this quick-hit piece!)

Then I got in the shower. (This detail is notable because, of course, most good ideas come in the shower.) I thought about the name some more. I thought: Dreambox Journeys.

Hmm. Close, getting at a lot of the philosophies, but it still wasn’t quite right.

With shampoo on my head, I turned my thoughts back to the “random” necklace I’d made that morning. I thought: “What I really liked was the joy of discovering how those pieces could come together.”

That in turn prompted contemplation about loving estate sales and flea markets partly because of the discovery — the discovery of cool things, the discovery of people’s lives and histories.

Then I thought: Discovering. Discoveries.

And our name was born.

But I still have to clean up that board …