Design Challenge: One Bead

Sometimes when I sit at my jewelry bench (well, desk), I get overwhelmed by the colors and textures of my stockpile.  To push myself to make something, I'll pick ONE item and force myself to design a piece around that.  This week, I chose this botswana agate coin bead:

The chevron striation is just gorgeous and I love the variety of colors:  grey, cream, brown and pink.  Well, I'm not a fan of pink, but the stone looks so neutral the pink seems to fit in.  I really wanted to showcase this stone, so I decided to create a mirrored background for it.  Using my handy dandy dapping block, I domed a silver disc so that it gently cupped the stone.  And here's the final product shot for the necklace designed around this bead: