Tackle that stash - First bead embroidered pendant

First, I have to make a confession. There were times when I wasn't a fan of bead embroidery. In a time where I was all about airy wire crochet and knit, the only bead embroidered pieces I got to see were huge bangles. Don't get me wrong, I always admired the technique as such, the colors, the craftsmanship, but those bangles looked so heavy to me.
Over the years I got to see more and more very different pieces, though, and I noticed how the look began growing on me. I think I hadn't even been aware that some things were bead embroidered, and obviously I didn't remember that I (had?) owned a pendant myself that my best friend had given me as a gift when I was about 11.

The other day when I went to look for some beads, I noticed a box on my storage boxes. My storage boxes are in shelves, so a flat white box is rather inconspicuous. I opened it and found two sheets of "Stiff Stuff" which is used for bead embroidery. I very vaguely remembered ordering it months ago, but why? It probably had to do with a project that I am actually working on now.
Having nothing better to do at the moment I decided spontaneously to make my first embroidered pendant and picked a labradorite cab, round because it seemed the easiest to do as a beginner. Then I watched about three minutes of a 45 minute video to see if it was done the way I thought. This is not supposed to be showing off, but after all I already knew basic peyote bezels, so I just needed to make sure about what stitch to use for the start and how to finish the edges for the backing in the end.

I gathered some beads that seemed to work well with the lab and played around. This was actually rather fun to do and I even found some more beads I had completely forgotten about.
When it was time for the final backing, however, I noticed that I hadn't ordered of that.
After looking around on eBay and finding one piece of Ultrasuede, a bargain at £9.999 (it was obviously a typo) I turned to my trusted bead advisors - everyone should have at least one of those - and asked them what they preferred to use. Then I ordered something that looked right to me from the picture. When it arrived a few days later I found it wasn't the right thing. After banging my head on the desk a few times I looked around again and found a new bead store in the process. Nothing wrong about that, is it? :-D
Well, and when my order arrived, I glued on the Ultrasuede (with a little much too glue it seems, now I have some small spots on the back, but given the strained relationship between glue and me it could have been much worse), did the edging and couldn't resist a few more tiny seed beads around the firepolished crystals before adding a brick stitch bail.

There's no stopping me now! ;-)