Faux opal necklace

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I've been working on this necklace for the past few weeks. I've always loved faux opal (aka harlequin) vintage glass cabochons. I bought some on etsy from both laurenrose and sunshinebuttercup. Once I got all of them, I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, but then I thought that it would be very cool if I linked a bunch of them together to form a necklace.

So it started like this. You can see bead embroidery in various stages here.

And then I started planning out how it was going to look once I joined them all together.

But in the end I decided to place them sideways rather than up and down. Here, you can see that they've been sewn together, I've added pearls around the cabochons, and the sides of the necklace are there, but I haven't gotten to the clasp yet. The colors don't look quite right in the photos I took inside, however, and the pink beads and pearls don't match the cabochons as well in these photos as they do in real life.

And here I added the clasp--a toggle with three loops so it's adjustable.

And finally, here are some pictures I took outside in natural light. The colors still aren't quite right, but it's much closer. I think this is my favorite picture.

And the whole necklace again:


And I still have some more of these faux opal cabochons left. I think I may make some earrings and a simple pendant with just one stone because as much as I like this necklace, it is awfully fancy.



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