Lora IrishEasy & Elegant Beaded Copper Jewelry: How to Create Beautiful Fashion Accessories from a Few Basic Steps (Fox Chapel Publishing)

Don’t let the title limit you… The techniques taught in this book can be used not only for copper wire, but also for sterling silver, gold filled and all kinds of craft wire.WRAPS, COILS, HOOKS, FASTNERS, AND LINKS, WITH OR WITHOUT BEADS…IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A REALLY GOOD WIRE WRAP REFERENCE BOOK, BUY THIS ONE!This is actually one of the best put together wire-work reference books I’ve seen! The author was very organized and methodical so I rate this book a MUST HAVE, not only for beginners but also for those who are more advanced in wire-work. With a little imagination, you can use this book to go from zero experience to designing your own wire jewelry in no time, but even if you are not yet ready to design, you can use the author’s project instructions to make some nice jewelry pieces while learning the various techniques.This book has great photographic instructions that should be easy to use, even for a beginner in wire-work. It gives detailed photos and written directions for the steps involved in making each of the various wraps, loops, coils and links. On top of that, each jewelry project gives photographs of the components used in its design so you know exactly what you will need to make, and those design component photos are named and their individual link numbers are given with the photos so you can easily turn to the instructions, if needed. The technical lessons are given in numerical order by link numbers for easy reference and are placed together in a separate part of the book. This way you can easily find the instructions for the techniques used in a given project as well as techniques for your own designs, so they can be mixed and matched as you choose.In this book, you don’t need to search through design projects to find the name of the techniques used, but not only that, the author has also put each basic technique and all its variations together in a section of photo pages so you can just look down the list of photographs on the page, find the variation you want, go to the link number and learn how to make it!“Easy & Elegant Beaded Copper Jewelry” has everything you would need to start and complete a wire jewelry project, using your own creativity. In fact I would say the author had this in mind when this book was compiled, because she went to great pains to organize it. You actually don’t have to make any of the author’s projects before getting started. All you need is a little imagination to create your own designs.So, if you have to make a choice, this is the book to buy!

I have been buying up every book I can find on copper, wire work, wire wrapping, etc. So this review is written with some of those other books in mind. Unfortunately, this is not my favorite of the books I've looked at lately.There are some great things about this book. The photography is clear and the instructions are easy to follow. If you are a true beginner and are a little hesitant with respect to your own creative abilities, I think this book could give you the confidence you need to move on to other books, because there really is a lot of repetition here. (Repetition is not my thing for jewelry-making, but in other areas of my life -- say, organic chemistry class -- repetition has definitely helped me gain confidence in my abilities.) The introduction to tools is quite basic so I skipped most of it as I already have a lot more tools than are introduced in that section. If you want to know the bare minimum you will need, though, it is a good starting place.I guess what my main issue is stems from something I read in the introduction. The author talks about all these other crafts she does (involving wood burning/carving, etc.). And then says she was inspired to take up something new when her 80 year old mother took a quilting class. So she (the author) randomly chose wire work. Although the author has a lot of experience crafting, it is largely experience with crafting that is not jewelry making. And while she does a great job explaining everything she does in the book, to me it is obvious that she isn't coming from a lifetime of making jewelry. I will try to explain my issue with this as I go on, so bear with me.Most of what you will see in this book are constructions the author calls "links." These are smaller wire motifs that you can connect together to make larger pieces of jewelry. For example, you could put a handful of "links" together and make a bracelet. There are pages and pages of these. It's like the author just sat there for a week with a pen and paper and drew every curlicue she could, then made them out of wire and photographed them. So many of the links are very small variations on other links (e.g., a spiral without a hole in the middle versus a spiral with a hole, or an extra curve somewhere, or a very slightly tilted angle, or three beads on a straight piece of wire instead of just one). I feel like there are just too many pages devoted to these, that not all the variations are necessary, but that the author, being relatively new to the craft, couldn't see the repetitiveness of what she was coming up with and so couldn't do the necessary culling.The other thing is, by focusing on "links," you really don't get a sense of the breadth of what you can do with wire and beads. The scope of this book is quite limited. Everything here is "linked." So much of the jewelry ends up looking very similar, regardless of how long you spend forming the little motifs with wire. You don't do anything with wire jigs here (even though some of the "links" would honestly be easier with a jig), or any kind of loom or knitting tool, there's no setting of cabochons, no wire wrapping of a smaller gauge wire around a larger one, etc.This is not a bad book. As I've said above, there are some great bits of information, especially for beginners. It's just much more limited in its scope than I was hoping for.

This is truly one of the best books on wire jewelry I have seen. The chapters are titled:Chapter 1 - The Basic Tool KitChapter 2 - 14 Basic Bent-Wire LinksChapter 3 - Basic Chain LinksChapter 4 - Connecting the LinksChapter 5 - Hook-and-Eye SetsChapter 6 - Rattail and Suede Leather CordsChapter 7 - The Complete Link SetChapter 8 - Adding a Wire WrapChapter 9 - How to Use the Instructions (and change them)Chapter 10 - Designing Your Own JewelryChapter 11 - ProjectsThis is such a complete book. It is chock full of ideas and easy ways to create beautiful pieces of jewelry. There are twelve pages of different link styles, listing each style one by one. While some are a variation of the same link, there are tons of creative, original ideas and links that I have never seen before. There are 346 different links listed with instructions!Then come the projects. There are over a hundred pages worth of projects and many pages have only one project per page. Plus, the author goes into detail in Chapter 9 on how to change up the projects and design your own from the links and instructions she has given. The photos are high quality and show a great deal of detail of each of the pieces.Even someone who has not created wire jewelry before will be able to create these projects.I have added a few photos of the book in the photo section.I hope the author writes more books and that she knows how much this one is appreciated!

I bought this book on the recommendation of my jewellery teacher. It has so many ideas, going from basic links to complex ones, and it is full of ideas to use. Instructions are really clear - I am an intermediate level jewellery maker, and this is perfect to give me the inspiration to go on to making my own designs a little more interesting and creative. The only problem is where to start!

I own about a dozen jewellery making books, but this is the best one I've seen for anyone wanting to learn wire work. Great pictures and explanations. Wish I'd bought this one first and saved my money on the others.

Great for making various links, and giving your jewellery a different look with copper or other metals. Some new to me and showed you how to do them.

Glad I bought the book, very easy to understand. I will be looking forward to more books by this artist

When I first started looking at this book, it looked to be for the real beginner, so I was a little disappointed, but as I went along I started to really like the book. It has tons of great links and ideas to use the links. A very good book to add to your library. The designs can be made out of any kind of metal--not just copper.