beginning a new project

in order to make the necklace that I did the drawing for, I needed to teach myself a couple of new techniques 

that crystal edged bezel was amazing to create -- you sort of build a bead "pocket" with the crystals out on the edges that the bigger crystal slips into

now that I've built one of those, I want to try making a couple of changes when I make the next one -- I want more of the face of the big crystal to show, so I need to "tweek" the design a bit

the tube of beads there was an interesting exercise -- the technique is called Cubic Right Angle Weave -- or CRAW for short, and you basically build little connected blocks of beads -- the end result is essentially the same as what I've been doing for quite a while by making a long flat piece of right angle weave and then "zipping" it up the side to make a tube -- so now I know how to create it two different ways

now that I know how to do both of these techniques, I'll be creating some more bezels and some more tubes so I can start putting the necklace together

 and since there are LOTS of those orange/golden crystals here on hand, there will be several pieces made out of them

this is the drawing I did last night for a bracelet made out of some of those pieces too

pretty exciting!