Searches for Ouches

I've spent way too many late-night-in-the-dark iPad internet hours searching for the right bling for these French hood billiments.

These are apparently called Ouches, (which are pronounced Oooo-tchiz)

I do this for all you BYOB folks. You know who you are.

There may be only three of you - but you know who you are :)

I ran across these pretty fabulously awesome buttons.

 I wrote to the company and asked if I could change almost everything about them:

• - the finish needs to be antique gold
• - the rhinestones should be black, or black and red
• - they needed to be 50% bigger
• - they needed to be a two-hole-slider bead instead of a shank button.

So far -the answer is yes, sure, and great, and we'll send you a sample.

The only NO I got was about changing the stones to be square cut stones. They didn't actually say NO to that; they said "it will cost a lot, but we could do it." I said no thanks.

Still - they look pretty fabulously Tudorishly French Hoodish to me :)

Very jazzed!

Then...THEN! I found these!

Which look much MORE like the close-ups I've managed to get for the billi-bling I need:

Those are on their way already :) Well, 60 pairs of them are, anyway.

Course now, THESE are what I really want:

They are from http://www.pewterreplicas.com/dept.asp?id=29, and they are only $7.41 USD each, not including overseas shipping. Sadly - that's a no-go due to cost. The other thing is - they are gold-plated pewter, which is probably much closer to the weight that these hoods would have had with the real jewelry on them as opposed to the lightweight, hollow, or plated bling I'm using. (Though the glass pearls I'm using get pretty heavy on their own, and some of my small beads are plated brass, which are not light.) Makes me understand the chin strap that I've never felt the need for on my nice, lightweight ones.

So - my search continues, but I'm excited about the options I've found so far.

In my future-pipe dream imaginings, I'll get my overseas company to custom make some lightweight, plated ones that are very similar to the pewter ones, with awesome square jet rhinestones.

I need to see if people actually WANT these hoods first, though.

(Always nervous about new styles.)