I hope you all had a merry holiday and weren't sick like yours truly, ugh. I didn't go to work yesterday so I took the opportunity to do a restringing project. It took two tries but I'm thrilled with how it turned out.
First, I have to say there's a baroque Tahitian strand on PP that I really, really want. Pout. Although they're on sale and extremely affordable, I can't really justify it. So, I reminded myself that I have these for now and took the opportunity to fix them up a bit. I removed the largest pearl because it was a total dud, added some smaller ones that came with the strand as extras, rearranged them all a bit, changed the clasp from a hollow ball to a hammered toggle that I antiqued with liver of sulfer, and of course added the connector charm. The wooden necklace form was a gift from my thoughtful husband.
Voila, a new and improved necklace! The new length is about 18" and the pearls, though not perfect, are a nice bright teal blue in real life.
eta - this is strung on 30lb powerpro (overkill, I know, but it's what they had at the sporting goods store and now I have 150 yards of it!) and I broke two big eye needles in the process of stringing it. I got into a couple of tight spots and the powerpro pulled right though the eyes with no damage to the line. I finished all the connected ends with gimp and used the back knotting technique I learned here in this wonderful forum.