Purpleheart and emerald pendants

I’m just getting into woodworking, and in order to practice I have made a few different pendants. This is a set of 4 purpleheart pendants each set with 3 small oval emeralds. I am getting married in May, and I was considering letting my fiance give these to her bridesmaids. I’ll just run down how I put these together.

1: I drilled 4 holes and cut blanks out of a board of purpleheart.

2: I cut the blanks in half, set the stones between the two halves (by scraping out a little material for the stones to sit), and glued the two halves back together.

3: I drilled holes for the chain. I filed, sanded, and burnished the wood smooth.

4: I applied 7 coats of lacquer with a q-tip (so I don’t need to worry about cleaning out a brush), and rubbed them to a brushed finish using sandpaper and 0000 steel wool

As you can probably see, the finish isn’t perfect. The flash on the camera does a good job of highlighting the imperfections. Also, the 4 pendants have a noticeable size difference when lined up next to each other. The biggest problem, though, is that the stones are recessed too far to really notice the green color. If I were to use this design again, I would probably cut a slit all the way along the bottom part of the pendent so that the sides of the stones could better catch the light.

I’m still trying different things. I have 3 other jewelry projects I have already completed, and I’m working on 2 more pendants that should have a much better balance of wood and stone. I’ll post them as I can get around to them. If anyone has any questions, suggestions, or comments, I’d love to hear them. Thanks.