Hey, Casey, I'll try and give you some pointers on how to get the beads to fit better.

You can heat up a large needle or nail like you said and melt a larger hole or use a drill to make it bigger too. Drilling the hole works well if you don't need to make the hole too much bigger, but you'll crack the bead a lot of the time by doing it that way.

I'm over here in the greater Seattle area and there are bead shops all over the place but I haven't been able to find the flourescent red/orange beads with the large diamater hole.

Oh yeah, your Vision sample is coming soon too