One of the most challenging things to me when pursuing a project like this is trying to find the right components to achieve the look of the finished piece. I started out by checking Fire Mountain Gems (which I’ve gotten a lot of stuff from… probably too much…) and found quite a few things I thought would work for it. The bottommost layer (with the teardrop shaped pearls) is where I started out. Finding the pearls for it wasn’t too difficult, and I bounced between white pearls or silver (as they seem to have a silvery look to them). 
I wasn’t able to find a silver or gray pearl that I was completely pleased with either because of the size or the shape, so I finally settled on using white since there tends to be way more options with. Upon further close inspection I could see what could be either a small golden bead beneath the pearl on the end of the strand or a beaded end headpin. I already had some plain gold headpins from other jewelry projects so I decided to use those in conjunction with a small golden bead to finish off the pendant strand. I continued to work my way up the strand to the next piece which to me looks like an upside down cross-shaped bead. To be completely honest I did not like the idea of having upside down crosses dangling along the back of my head, so instead I settled on some pretty wing-shaped beads and turned them upside down to achieve a similar shape seen in the above pic.
Now I have to admit it’s difficult to say for sure how the rest of those strands look since they are mostly covered by the rows of beads above them near the base of the headpiece. I considered using golden chain to suspend them from, but I also went back to the picture of St. Clare that I referenced in my hair accessories paper in which a metallic looking gefrens in on the table and appears very rigid, so I decided against chain for the time being, although I can’t promise I won’t try it just to see how it works out in the future. I tried putting the wing-shaped bead on a long piece of rigid jewelry wire and I honestly didn’t care for how it appeared. Could it be made in a similar way when this painting originated? Possibly, it just didn’t appeal to me as much aesthetically so I tried something else. 
This time I used thin, flexible beading wire and doubled it up to give the strand some strength and stability. Once I put a small jump ring at the bottom to anchor the pearl to, I used some thin tube-shaped golden beads that I felt would give the strand the look of being a singular piece of metal, but at the same time allowing it some flexibility so when worn, it moves naturally along with a walking stride, and (hopefully) not rigidly flailing around like some sort of crazy hair weapon, although that may prove useful somehow in the future 😉
I also added some small golden beads at the bottom under the pearl, and some interspersed hollowed filigree gold beads to keep the weight down but to also add some texture to the strand.
I finished off the strand with a golden crimp bead after I made a loop back down into the strand to hopefully double up the strength of the wire in hopes it would hold up when worn. Some of the things that concern me in addition to the weight of the strands when altogether is how it will hold up when it’s worn for extended periods of time. I don’t envision this gefrens as an everyday accessory of course, that would be absurd with how much walking around happens at an event. I would love for it to be a court accessory, or for a special occasion down the road.
Once I finished off the strand and was content with its appearance, I repeated the process to make all twelve strands as seen in the portrait. I decided to anchor them to a piece of thin floral wire. I used smaller tube-shaped beads as well as some of regular golden beads that matched the small ones at the ends to hide the green floral wire and offer some method of spacing between each strand. As I was nearing the end of the 12 strands i began to notice the weight that was accumulating rather quickly.
I also noticed the strands didn’t quite stay in place as intended, so I need to figure out a fix for that. That may include anchoring this floral base to another sturdier piece of wire to keep them in place, or another method I haven’t thought of yet.
And of course, because it’s me, I discovered too late that I had run out of the larger tube-shaped beads to finish the last strand. I went back onto Fire Mountain Gems to unfortunately discover that those particular beads are out of stock and now placed on back order. Boo. In the meantime, I found some other tube-shaped beads in different sizes, so I picked up some of those to try out other some other beads in hopes of hitting the desired look as close as possible.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out so far. I really want to make this project work somehow, and I’m afraid it will become overwhelming if I’m not able to troubleshoot some of the issues when putting this together. It seems a recurring theme of me wanted to make something that looks amazing but is WAY above my skill set so I’m not even sure where to begin or how to proceed. Keep you fingers crossed for me, a little extra luck couldn’t hurt right now!