That Voilà! Moment

Sat down with an older piece today that I had never been quite happy about. Unstrung it and put it on my bead design board and started playing around for about half an hour. I think I've finally figured out what I want to do!

I added some newer beads I love, and wish I had found more of, but I found them on the discount shelf at Michael's (where they've completely re-designed their beading area, in many ways it's much, much better now) and some antique gold tone matte seed beads, made from who knows what material, I think it's a coated glass. Those I found a few months ago, at a wonderful store called Global Beads, when I was doing a lot of antique gold tone pieces (see this one at Etsy for the bead) and felt that "voilà!" moment. The picture is a bit dark, took it with my phone camera.










Here's the bead I like so much - it's got a little milleflore type flower in it and a foil lining in the center.












This evening, while looking for a good price for some silver lever-back earring components, I also found a large supply of the bead I've been looking for - in quite a few colors, except for the color I want. Artbeads had them, called "flat hexagon" beads. If I ever find them in a pale pink, I'm buying a couple pounds of 'em.