coloring metal findings?

[adjustabeledi.livejournal.com]

after searching for evah in the real world, i caved and bought a gross (a gross!) of cell phone lariats online. seriously, i called 4 different stores looking for them!

so, a few years ago, i had made myself this tigerseye bead bracelet. i got out the headpins and black seed & e beads and went to town making all sorts of long dangly bits. but when i put them together to make the bracelet, i realized that 1 1/2" danglies spaced inbetween beads just looks junky to me.
massively discouraged and not wanting to take half of them apart to make shorter ones, i put the whole thing in with the rest of my beads and went and made a bunch of book purses instead.

so anyways, i got my lariats in the mail, and got out all my beads, and i realize that all those tigerseye danglies look awesome as cell phone charms!



the lariats came with a split ring, but i HATE split rings with a passion. or, at least, my thumbnails hate me for using them. (they also hate it when i work with headpins in general. but they can take the pressure, they're just whiny) so i replaced the split ring with various wild wire rings that i had floating around from when i took a chain mail class. i'm so happy with how the black ones look that ive decided to use all those colored ones i have too. boo split rings!

so, here's some more pictures and some questions for you guys...



the lariats are black strings with silvertone doohickeys on the end, but i have all these copper findings that i've fallen in love with. i actually went ahead and made the copper ones and put them on a thick copper wildwire homemade jumpring and stuck that through the silver end of the lariat.

is there some way i can color that end of the lariat into copper, like the opposite of when you take a penny and made it silvery in chemistry class? i've already tried my sharpies, but they don't dry on the metal.

i've actually considered taking and covering the finding with an ultre-thin layer of polymer clay. if i can't get them to be copper than i can at least make them black to match the strap, right?

(and then i could glue little rhinestones into the polymer clay)

am i being overly obsessive about something thats 1/4" long? is this something i could just ignore? (actually, those rhinestones sound like a really cool idea now. maybe i've answered my own question here...)

also, i found these ultra cute little copper clapperless bells. i put 2 of them on each charm, but i'm kind of worried that they would be too noisy. they really only give out a faint tinkling noise, and thats when they're moved against each other. on a digital camera or purse or ipod that would actually be kind of cute, but would they be distractive on a cell phone? i'm going to have to test-run one of them, i guess.

one more question: do you think the dark blue/copper one is too bulky? it has 5 seperate danglies on it, and one of them branches. i don't know if the cylindrical beads make it too thick when the spacers and seed beads are so little and dainty looking, or what. i have a bunch more cobalt blue beads, it's one of my favorite colors, maybe i should make a couple more danglies and split it into 2 parts...

how do split ring pliers work? would they give me and my thumbnails a change of heart?

please, opinionate me!