A Book Review

I pre-ordered a copy of Jessica Rose's book Bead And Wire Fashion Jewellery way back in the summer and now its arrived. Jessica is the owner of The London Jewellery School and Jewelryfromhome.com and a major inspiration to me so I want to share her new book with you all so that maybe you can find some inspiration too. 

The book is broken up into six sections including detailed areas on tools, materials and techniques. The techniques section shows how everything from making a simple loop to a wire charm and even making your own ear hooks and catches. Even though I have been making jewellery for most of my life I have still learned something from this book that I would never have done before like making my own catches. I think its something you may see popping up in my work from now on. 

There are 18 projects in this book broken up into sections for Necklaces, Earrings, Bracelets and Rings. I love that each project is preceded by a whole page displayed as a mood board for that piece. Mood boards are a great way to get a feel for a piece before making it so using this technique in the book shows how you may change a focal colour slightly to suit your needs and it still work out well. 

Having never made a clasp myself from wire I decided to make a few using Jessica's tutorials. I think I have just gotten stuck in the idea of buying them all the time and just never thought about making my own. And this is how they have turned out, It's a new skill I have now picked up and hope to use more often in my work. I won't be worrying about running out of clasps anymore. 

I also wanted to try out one of the Ring tutorials. Jessica has two different rings using similar techniques so I decided to try the Entwined tutorial which actually consists of three beads but I loved how mine turned out using just the one ceramic bead so I finished it there. Jessica's tutorial calls for a gemstone but all I had in the size required was this vintage coloured ceramic bead and I used silver plated wire instead of gold plated.

This is the first ring I have ever made entirely. I have made the odd ring using a ring base and attaching beads to but Jessica's instructions and multiple step-by-step pictures are so helpful this was my first go. I have a few variations I'm going to try out now with different wires and beads so I'm sure you will be seeing them in the next while. 

All in all Jessica's book is fantastic. The instructions are clear, the pictures are really helpful and the tips dotted throughout the book help so much. My favourite parts have to be the mood boards before each tutorial. They just give you so much inspiration and confidence to make a piece. 

So finally I want to share the link so that you can buy the book if you wish. Click here to go to Amazon. 

Having An Amazing Week

So this week started off great with finding out Monday morning that I had won the Cookson Gold #FreebieFriday giveaway. As part of the competition I had chosen a barrel polisher and it arrived on Tuesday afternoon. You can see my post about that here.

After I posted a blog post thanking Cookson Gold on Tuesday I was told something else was on its way as a surprise so today my neighbor came in with a package she had taken in while I was out. I was so happy to find a bag of mixed metal and shape shot for the barrel polisher with a lovely note saying "I'd hate for you to have to wait to buy some, so here is some to get you started."  So thank you very much Steph, it has been a long road trying to build my workshop and this helps me move along so much.

Also this week I received my copy of Jessica Rose's book Bead and Wire Fashion Jewellery thank I had pre-ordered way back in the summer. I have really enjoyed playing around with the tutorials in the book so keep an eye out in the next few days for a post all about the book. 

And last but not least, Yesterday I went to the shop and picked up a copy of the October issue of Beads and Beyond Magazine to see my pieces I made for the designer challenge. You can see my post with a larger photos here.