I know what you're talking about. I remember feeling it often when I was first hacking away at QBasic in high school. I don't have any good suggestions on how to bring that "sparkle" back, other than to find projects that you're passionate about.
That might turn out to be a very good advice. I may have been increasingly approaching my projects as senseless chores.
I know how you feel, a few months ago I was working on a game with a friend just for fun (I was coding, he was doing everything art, music, etc). At one point I realized I was putting off working on it because I wasn't enjoying it, so I just told him that I didn't want to make it anymore and moved on to projects I found more interesting (like cryptography :D). If your projects feel like chores, I would recommend learning about a field you don't know much about and starting from scratch there :)