Still Hopping!

I am having such fun hopping! I apologize for being rather behind...but I'm enjoying all the blogs so much that I'm taking the time to spend a little extra time with each one. I WILL eventually get to you all though! This last week has been an extremely busy one for me as I had to work through last weekend's event at my real job...so I'm sorry that I haven't yet been able to respond to everyone...but I will!

On a somewhat off-topic note, you will probably have noticed that the majority of my production of jewelry goes to benefit the National Inclusion Project. I am the volunteer coordinator in Canada for the charity, and if any of you watch The Celebrity Apprentice, this season you will see my boss at the NIP competing! He is of course competing on behalf of the NIP, and we are all so proud of him! So, every Sunday night at 9 PM until May 20th, you know where I'll be! Please help us cheer him on! He is, without a doubt, the finest man it has ever been my pleasure to know, a wonderful CEO...and he deserves to win!

While I watch Celebrity Apprentice with my heart in my mouth, I of course bead to relax...so here is what I've been working on over the last week or two...

I'm not normally a big gemstone person, but this strand of faceted agate beads just reached out from the wall and grabbed me. I wanted to do something really quite simple, to show off the gems themselves, so I chose to just string them, with a beaded bead as a focal at centre front.

I actually ended up doing three different beaded beads for the focal, as I played with different components of the bead and color variations. 

I am going to use this one; it is a slightly different variation of the basic pattern from Mu of centperles blog.Thank you to her for the original pattern, which I have amended a bit to create this focal.

It is created from Swarovski crystal, seed beads and Swarovski glass pearls; the same color pearls are used as separators through the necklace length, for the gemstones. 

I will show you the finished necklace tomorrow, when I draw for my Bead Soup Blog Party Giveaway Winner

Edited 03/10/12 to give direct link to the free beaded bead pattern.