Bead Dreams- One yes, One no!

I received my letter from the Bead and Button competition today.  I entered two pieces, and one was accepted as a finalist!  I am so pleased and excited!  Of the two pieces, I could never guess which one would have a better chance.  Good thing I entered 2 of them!

I don't like to publish pictures of pieces before the contest (ruins the surprise!), so I will show you the one that was NOT accepted. I titled it "Guardians". Those of you that are FB friends have been watching this one take shape for quite some time.

This is actually a piece that a customer of mine commissioned. She had a really big and heavy smoky quartz crystal point that she wanted included in the piece. She also wanted these 2 big wooden dragon earrings. (yes, they are earrings!) to be a part of it . I wasn't sure it would all work out.

Let me explain the earrings: The main part of the dragon went behind the ear, then the tail was a separate piece that attached on the front and held the earring on.  Here is a picture of the piece when I was working on it, without these upper tails attached.

One other small problem- one of the tails was missing!!  I ended up making a tail to match from polymer clay!!  It's the one on the left:

Although these dragons are glued on, I decided they should be reinforced and "tethered" them with beading.  I also built up the beading underneath in those places to support them better.  I also beaded around the top and bottom of the crystal to give it extra support.

So that's the story about how this came about. My customer has not seen it yet- she loves big intricate work, so I hope she likes it!  Here are the pictures of the finished piece:

the clasp

And just a peek at the piece that was accepted as a finalist: