You probably have heard the news by now - The cost of gold is now over $1,000 mark. Granted, it will change a little from day to day as all metal prices will, but this just brings home the struggle that many jewelry makers are dealing with these days: all metal costs are on the rise. Has this affected your jewelry designing at all? If so, how do you deal with this?

We are brainstorming about this right now over at the Jewelry Making Forum, but feel free to add your ideas in the comments here. Even though we don't all use gold, in fact most of use have preferred to use lower-costing silver for some time, the overall cost of metal is still a concern for many jewelry makers right now.