The Vocal Focal...

...isn't that the most fabulous swap name? And this was one of the most fun swaps I've been in, as well. Just a small one...there were 12 of us. My partner is Renetha Stanziano at Lamplight Crafts and Renetha actually sent me TWO beautiful focals!

The first one is a beautifully etched-finish long tablet glass focal, drilled vertically. The colors are right in my wheel house and so of course it was this one that I started thinking about to begin with. How to show it off, without overwhelming it?

I thought about hanging it simply from a nice rope of some kind...but that seemed too ordinary, somehow, for this gorgeous bead...

I thought about trying to wire wrap it a bit and do a chain with some complementary beads...but my wire wrapping skills are so far primitive at best..and I didn't want to "cover up" the bead with wire in any way.
And then, as beady things will tend to go, I had an inspiration in the shower one day.. (don't visualize that scene...it will be bad for your mental health!)

When I look at the bead, I think immediately of water and waves; it may be tough to see in the picture, but the bead is sparked with a bit of silver in those curls...it's just gorgeous. The word that came to my mind....is rivulets....rivulets, running down to the ocean...and there's where my design came to being.

I plan on doing a plump skein of individually strung seed bead strands, that will move and shimmer, in the colors drawn from the bead. I am including a chain which I have used a bit and absolutely adore as one of the strands as well; it is a very tiny what I call dot-and-dash ball chain and will add a bit of texture and some additional sparkle, and mimic the silver in the bead itself.

The skein will be caught at centre front with a bail made of swarovski Crystal AB bicones or rounds in RAW about an inch or so wide; I'm hoping it will look like wave splash :-). The bead will dangle from that.
Here are the seed beads I've pulled, to give the general idea:

And a bit more closeup to show the detail of the bead and that dot-and-dash chain I love:

And then....the second beautiful focal Renetha sent me! I'm a little star-struck LOL...Renetha's friend the inimitable Carole Ohl designed this focal, which Renetha then stitched. 

It is absolutely gorgeous! I don't have plans "set in stone" yet for this one, but am leaning toward a really simple textured seed-beaded bracelet, probably silver, with this as the focal clasp. It is well-designed as it has a "slip-on" feature at the back which makes it really easy to attach, almost like a slider bead.

Thanks again to Renetha and Bonnie Coursolle at Jasper's Gems who organized this swap! Here is the list of the other particpants. Please take a few moments to visit them as well!

Cindy Wimmer	Sweet Bead Studio
Ginger Bishop	lilmummylikes
Bonnie Coursolle	Jasper's Gems
Andra Weber	Andra's Joyful Journey
Shirley Moore	Beads and Bread
Kashmira Patel	Sadafulee
Maybeline Tay	The Jewelry Larder
Dee Torcherer Elgie	Cherry Obsidia
Bonnie Coursolle	Jasper's Gems
Rhonda Baird	Dizzy in Chains

ETA: I see some of these links are not working, and I'm not sure why...working on it!
ETAA: Fixed!