Year of Jewelry Week 6

The theme of the week is "Flowers", so I couldn't resist developing this design which has been sitting in my journal for quite some time. And since I just came back from a bead show with just the right colored beads (purple amethyst, green and garnet), it turned out very much like it was planned! The pendant is just about 4 cm wide, which is a tiny bit more than 1 1/2 inches. What I like about the piece is that it is entirely constructed over a single 8mm jumpring: the amethysts were secured using 24 GF ga wire and then painstakingly coiled and framed with 28 ga gold-filled wire. The other beads are vermeil (silver with an overlay of 18k gold), an unknown green stone called vansuanite and tiny 3mm garnets. The pin took almost 4 hours to create, but I'm happy with the results! I was asked if the back of the pin is as neat and clean as the front. I believe the back of a piece of jewelry is as important as the front -- it has always been my own personal technical challenge to keep the entire piece clean and neat. I have discarded many pieces of jewelry which I didn't think were fit to be sold or even given to friends because the back wasn't neat enough.