Wire is a favorite design material for jewelry artists, allowing for the creation of simple loops and embellishments to more involved, intricate pieces. In Jewelry Studio: Wire Wrapping, Linda Chandler and Christine Ritchey-the best-selling authors of Woven Wire Jewelry and Getting Started Making Wire Jewelry and more-take the mystery out of wire wrapping and share their insider secrets for making gorgeous jewelry from bundles of joined wire, no soldering required! This technique allows the jewelry maker to create timeless, elegant pieces that are beautifully simple to elaborately complex.

Starting with a discussion of safety, tools and materials-including the types of metals appropriate for wire wrapping-and helpful tips, tricks, and techniques necessary before beginning a first project, the authors cover all of the basics of this deceptively simple technique. Using detailed process photography, Jewelry Studio: Wire Wrapping shows all the basics of wire wrapping step by step then takes the reader through progressive skill building projects to teach a range of wrapping techniques. Projects include bracelets, earrings, pins, and wire wrapped pendants and also include instructions for the highly sought-after wire-wrapped cabochon. Before you know it you'll be creating an elegant bow tie bracelet, a celtic link bracelet with matching earrings, a wire wrapped ring, a beautiful bracelet with coils, and more!

Reviews: "An excellent book."-About.com Guide to Jewelry Making

"Clear, detailed photos accompanying the instructions make them easy to follow... A fun and useful book for beginners."-Booklist

Chain is fast, fun, and affordable.

Popular beading magazines are featuring projects incorporating chain, and the designs range from classic to vintage to steampunk. Chain Style expands on this hot trend by offering 50 creative ideas for how to use chain as the key design feature.

Key Features:

• Learn how to stretch your beading materials by incorporating chain in your design.
• The tools and materials are easy to obtain, and the techniques used are suitable for beginners.
• Techniques include opening and closing jump rings, cutting chain, oxidizing and hammering the chain to create texture and variety plus creating wire-wrapped loops and jump rings.
• 50 designs by top jewelry artists including Jane Dickerson, Kerry Bogert, Denise Peck, Yvonne Irvin, Leslie Rogalski, Lorelei Eurto, Melanie Brooks, and more.

 

Jane Dickerson, editor of Step by Step and Creative Jewelry magazines, offers a step-by-step guide to making easy, stylish, and contemporary bracelets and necklaces incorporating chain as a key element of the design. With 50 fabulous projects, there is a wide variety of design styles to choose from, plus lots or inspiring ideas for using chain creatively.

Designing with chain is fast, fun, and affordable. A few special beads connected together with chain will make a fabulous necklace in minutes!

Love the idea of making handcrafted wire jewelry but just don't know how to begin? Grab a copy of Getting Started Making Wire Jewelry and start learning!

• More than 100 color photographs and illustrations walk you, step by step, from where and how to shop for wire and beads, choosing the right kind and gauge of wire, to what tools-of-the-trade you'll need to borrow or buy.
• You'll learn how to make basic jewelry components such as loops, jump rings, findings, and connectors and then create one or all of the 6 projects including earrings, rings, a bracelet - or decorated cards.
• An abundance of tips and resources will keep those ideas flowing.

With this book as your guide, you'll master the art of creating beautiful wire jewelry and gifts in no time!

A growing number of the 500,000 beaders in the U.S. are deciding to go beyond simple stringing and bead crafting into the realm of more sophisticated metal jewelry. The techniques are simple, the tools affordable, and the space requirements small- a kitchen table will do.

Getting Started Making Metal Jewelry is the ideal introduction. Master teacher Mark Lareau offers practical advice on equipping a home workshop, and demystifies such basics as cutting, soldering, buffing, stamping, and wirework. Along the way, he gives step-by-step instructions for metalwork projects designed to help the reader build skills while creating beautiful designs. Pendants, earrings, bracelets, rings, and chains in styles from contemporary and funky to classic and elegant are presented, and the reader is encouraged to expand her own creativity and personal style.

The primary competition for this book is expensive, arty, and short on practical instruction for the beginner. Getting Started Making Metal Jewelry is packed with clear, explicit step-by-step photographs that make learning easy and success likely.

Reviews: "Simple, but gratifying projects... all great projects for beginners."-Bella Online Guide to Jewelry Making

"Tips are sprinkled throughout, one of our favorites being to search local thrift shops for buttons and beads."-Dallas Morning News

Tools and Materials

• Bench Pin
• Ring Clamp
• Saw and Saw Blades
• Metal Shears or Tin Snips
• Hammers
• Pliers
• Drill and Bits
• Files
• Polishing and Finishing Materials
• Rubber and Polishing Blocks
• Torch and Soldering Materials
• Dapping Block
• Pattern Punches
• Mandrels-Rings and Bracelet
• Liver of Sulfur
• Metal

A Little Science Before We Get Started in Earnest

• How Soldering Works
• Fusing

Learning by Doing: Some Basic Metalsmithing Techniques

• Simple Pendant
• Simple Earrings with French Wires or Posts
• Simple Fused Pendant
• Bracelet with Letter Punch Design
• Decorative Bead Caps
• Textured Pendant with a Window Cut-Out and Dangle
• Pendant with Rivets
• Soldering Stone Settings to Your Pieces
• Rings and Chains
• Fused Chain

Mark Lareau started his wireworking and metalsmithing odyssey in 1998 when he began making simple wire jewelry and basic mobiles. In 1992, Mark and his wife, Viki, opened The Bead Factory, a full-service retail bead store in Tacoma, Washington, and he has been teaching classes there since. Viki and Mark are also the founders of the Puget Sound Bead Festival, the most successful consumer bead event on the West Coast. Mark is the author of All Wired Up (Interweave Press, 2000), with 75,000 copies sold.

Susan Lenart Kazmer is an explorer, inventor, and maverick who has pioneered the use of found objects in jewelry making. Over the years, Susan has won many awards and has had her work included in museum exhibits, such as the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the Art Institute in New York, and the Huntington Museum of Art, to name a few. The post-Picasso Gallery included Susan's work in The Best of 2004. Susan is also considered a pioneer in the field of patination. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her family.