Tropical Nights Necklace and Earrings - EBW Challenge

It's time to vote for your favorite entry in the Etsy BeadWeavers monthly challenge again!
Triz, who won the November challenge, have chosen the Jan-Feb challenge theme - "Tropical Holiday". It was a great theme and I think it's the first time that there are so many entries - 47 wonderful creations!.
Please visit the EBW blog, pick your favorite and vote for it. Your comment is also appreciated. Voting lasts until the 15th , so don't postpone your voting!

My entry, #26, is the Tropical Nights necklace.
I used gorgeous, sparkling Czech vintage crystal stones I bought a while ago and I thought they would be perfect for this project, as they sparkle in iridescent shades of tropical green, fuchsia and yellow. I also used 24k gold plated Delicas, Swarovski crystal bicone beads and vibrant fuchsia Swarovski chatons.
I had to unpick the necklace a few times before I found the best connecting points of the components to allow the necklace to sit nicely around the neckline. I almost gave up after the forth time… :/ I hate that part of beadweaving, which I guess many, if not all beaders do… But, I was able to finish it on time, and I like the way it came out so much that I even created a pair of beadwoven earrings (I'm beginning to like creating those.. :)) with the beautiful fuchsia chatons.

Photographing this necklace was a challenge in itself.. and these are the best photos I could post. The necklace is much more sparkling and colorful in person. I am lucky to have a very patient photographer… Thanks, Ardjan! :)

Etsy Bead Weaver's June Challeng – Anything Goes

This is the first time I enter the Team Challenge. The theme for June was "Anything Goes". There are 37 entries for this challenge and they are all so beautiful! I am amazed to see how much talent there is in this group! The voting starts on June 7 and lasts until the 14th. So you might want to visit the Etsy Bead Weavers blog and look closely at all those wonderful creations. You can also vote for your favorite. I can already tell you it will be hard to pick just one as a favorite !.

As I said, this is the first time I enter the challenge. The necklace I made is the 3D Gold Trapezes Necklace. I came up with this design by accident, or shall I say by mistake. I started to bead a 3D square for another design that I had in mind, but I mistakenly didn't string the right number of beads required for a square and ended up with a trapeze. I decided to go along with that and made four more of them. Each one of the trapezes took me about an hour to finish, and another hour to put them all together to make a necklace. It was quite fun to make! :)

One, Two, Three... Bingo?..

I had to unpicked this necklace two times and I almost gave up finishing it.
At first, I just weaved two pieces in Ladder stitch and connected them together in the front by tying the edges (like a men's tie) and reinforced it with hidden stitches. It looked strange and I didn't like it (I don't have a photo of this first design).
Instead, I thought I'd make one pattern, known as the Serpentine, that was shown recently in the European forums.
I connected one Swarovski chaton in its setting close to the edge of the necklace in front, and weaved a number of 15/0 seed beads above and below it (decreasing), to cover the space created between the two connection points.
I probably didn't keep the correct direction of the thread coming in and out the beads from both sided of the necklace, so the Serpentine pattern didn't come out well - it was asymmetric and twisted. I unpicked it the second time.

The First Attempt With The Serpentine Pattern

I finally decided to make it simple: I used the chaton and 15/0 as before, but kept the upper part free - I didn't connected the two sides of the necklace.

More to the design problems, I used C-Lon thread (matching the beads colour) and although I waxed it before using, it kept splitting every few beads threaded :(
That was quite a work on a quite simple necklace..Still, I am not sure I like it, but NO way I'll unpick it again..

 The Final Design

 Close-up On The Pattern