It's only a few months since my next book, 'Small Beads, Big Jewelry' got the go-ahead, but already I am seeing laid out pages and the 2nd of 3 batches of projects are done. It may look like all I do is eat and drink but a lot of beading goes on behind the scenes!

I'm keeping lots of the projects under-wraps so they'll be a surprise when the book comes out but here are two that have just headed off to the publisher. One is a brick stitch bangle using colourful beads, with a picot edging, and the other is a very long rope, with a twist and extra embellishment beads, which can be worn in a few different ways. When designing this I was inspired to take the idea of a 'rope' in a different direction, more relevant to how anyone who wasn't a beader would think of the word, and experimented with knots which would enable the piece to be worn differently and also look good and physically work when created in beads. The colours I used were copper and blue and I'm in love with this piece. It's hard to part with it for a few months.

The clasp was embellished using a method I've done a few times now, basically just adding Crystal Clay to metal findings to alter their colour or add different colours. It adds a different dimension to pieces and I have even just used it to tone down the shine on some findings and add visual depth. I hope to explore doing this more in the future.