Be Bold Jewelry REVIEWS

Beadwork.About.com has a new caretaker!

Jennifer VanBenschoten is a very talented and knowledgeable bead artist so I’m looking forward to seeing what she does with the site.  I know she has some product and book reviews on the horizon.

Sounds like she has a lot in store for us:

“My goals for the site are to make it engaging, informative and fun for both the beginning and advanced beader. I want to have a good mix of projects and articles – enough to get the beginner interested and feeling confident about their skills, and some advanced projects to provide a little bit of a challenge.”  –Jen

Her site has only been live for a day, but go ahead and check it out.

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Instruction Quality: 3.5/4

Photo/Illustrations: 3/3

Projects: 2/3

Techniques Covered: Chain mail

Recommended For: Beginners and intermediates; people who like costume jewelry.

Comments: The book contains a rather perfunctory introduction; touching briefly on what chain mail is, tools, materials, and finishing touches. The 29 projects range from Beginner to Advanced, but a beginner who has patience and is comfortable opening and closing the rings would be able to complete the advanced projects with no problems.  One notable flaw is that all but one project, a byzantine necklace and earring set, is for flat mail. This gives a rather limited view of chain mail techniques.

The European 4-1 linking pattern is covered very nicely in the introductory material.  I was a little surprised that some of the other common linking patterns were not singled out for this special attention, but instead they are only identified by a small header near the directions for the projects where they are used. The book is definitely geared towards completing the projects, not familiarizing the reader with chain mail techniques in general. ”Tip Boxes” are sprinkled throughout the book and they contain some very helpful tips.   (more…)

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