New Jewelry Book Reviews Up

My stack is finally getting smaller, but boy, I've gotten some amazing books to review lately. I notice a good deal of mixed media titles seem to be a trend now, so while beads and wire are still "in" as far as materials, the possibilities of what to use and how to incorporate unusual objects is the current jewelry wave. For example, A Charming Exchange: 25 Jewelry Projects to Create and Share by Kelly Snelling and Ruth Rae is full of wonderful jewelry designs for the mixed-media artist. An additional trend - though unrelated to jewelry designing in some respects - that these authors incorporte into the text is the idea of connecting to other jewelry designers, off and on-line.

Another new mixed media book review I have recently posted is for Custom Cool Jewelry: Create 200+ Personalized Pendants, Charms, and Clasps by Melinda Barta. This book concentrates first on the parts and pieces, components needed to make jewelry like charms and pendants and clasps, and then shows how to combine these into some fun jewelry designs.