Where there's a want, there's a product

I have a selection of fantastic vintage Japanese glass links from the late forties/early fifties. They're flat and rectangular, with a floral design. The flowers are hand painted, but many of the colors are faded at this point.

I've always loved making earrings out of them, but it can be tricky, because the holes are a bit further from the edge than I would like. In some cases I've had to handmake French hooks because the loop on regular French hooks isn't large enough to accommodate the hole.

Recently I was going through my bead stash, and found the links again. "I would love to make earrings with these," I thought. But I remembered that they required handmade hooks, and so I put it off yet again.

A few days later I was paging through Rio Grande's extensive catalog when I noticed large loop French hook earrings.

Problem solved!