New Piece- Paua shell pendant

I worked on this one for 2 weeks in workshop. The Paua shell was an earring which had a hole in the top so I had to find a way to incorporate this in the design. The shell also did not sit flat so I had to fit the shell into a putty, once hard I had to sand and file the putty so that it would sit nicely into the fine silver bezel. The bezel was also challenging since it kept lifting and it took two of us each with a flame to get it to sit right and not melt it in the process. I sawed out the designs in the pendant body but when I finished I was not happy with the result, so I added some silver wire over top. Finally I took some wire and formed a ball fed it through the hole and made a bale, Voila. It was a project that I took on for workshop practise and it was definitely a learning experience. The person I made it for was to give it to her mother who just turned 70. They both loved it.
Happy 70th and congratulations.
Mixed Metal Mimi