Selected Book
Custom Cool Jewelry: Create 200+ Personalized Pendants, Charms, and Clasps
- Paperback
- Author: Melinda Barta
- Publisher: Interweave Press
- Release Date: August 2008
- ISBN-10: 1596680741
- ISBN-13: 9781596680746
- List Price: $22.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryCommon craft supplies find new purpose with the stunning, nontraditional jewelry designs in this guidebook. Basics items such as embossing powder, collage paper, wire, fiber, and fabric can be used to create one-of-a-kind, boutique-style pieces with a personal twist. From romantic wire-worked dangles and simple polymer clay beads to fabric charms and baked bead collages, the unconventional use of basic supplies provide a wealth of new possibilities for crafters. Each project component is shown in a number of color and design variations, inspiring readers to create their own jewelry pieces, and sidebars share insider tips, basic stringing and wirework techniques, and project and shopping resources. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
In Custom Cool Jewelry, Melinda Barta shows you how!
Rating:
It's no accident that Barta, Melinda's last name, contains the word ART. This chic yet accessible jewelry making book, Custom Cool Jewelry, is extremely artistic in sensibility...to the point that I (and any reader!) would love to own all of these fantastic pieces which Melinda has designed. They are up to date, or vintage, or dressy, or funky, or fascinating, or full of curious bits and pieces which have been pulled together by the author to make delicious sense, and they are one of a kind in style. That is why this book is called Custom Cool Jewelry. Ultimately, the reader is given the incentive viewing this lovely book with its solid teaching technique to go out and start making thoughtful and personal jewelry of her own.
As, at the moment, there is little interest in flashing "cookie cutter" styles, as far as jewelry is concerned, and most people who love jewelry like to look special and stand out from the crowd, this book is bound to be a huge hit. It brings artisan crafted jewelry to a fine point, and the author deftly guides you through the creation of unique pendants, charms, clasps, and finished projects. I have to stop right here and interrupt myself to say that my favorite technique in the book is the glass etching pendant technique. I love it, I love it, I love it! This technique is worth the price of the book alone! I do not think I am the only one who will find herself drawn to the mystique of etched pendants and beads, because of the way the author teaches how to create them.
But don't stop there! That's just the beginning! She has lockets with tiny and fascinating contents inside to die for, mixed media charms using a variety of glazes so that you can learn, as you make something fabulous, and simpler creations, too. Framed collage pendants with appealing images of stars, butterflies and angels...whatever is your fancy can be found in this book. Better yet, you can design it, because Barta shows you how!
Melinda Barta also covers polymer clay, and takes vintage jewelry and shows you how to turn it hip and update it. She teaches straight techniques, like lasso loops, and distressing, and how to end a jewelry piece with a set of orbital rings of your own making and some fabric or a hook. She shows you how to make a needle and thread mesh beaded clasp. I liked that demonstration a lot!
She also works with plastic, crystals, cabochons, and wire. She embosses and stamps! It is like a mini crash course in many techniques. Everything she makes is appealing.
The six finished projects presented at the end of the book, which utilize many of her techniques, are stunning. My favorite of those six? The "Floral Romance Necklace". It is light and airy. She has broken up the chain here and there with some beads to let it breathe, and the pendant she chose to finish it with, white with a black imprint, is something you can teach yourself to make earlier in the book. A true delight to see, and, I imagine, to wear.
Question: Would this be the very first book I would buy if I were just starting out to make jewelry?
Answer: Ummm, maybe; maybe not. Custom Cool Jewelry might seem overwhelming; it has so many types of jewelry making in it. In my opinion, it might be a great gift for intermediates and up. However, do not let that stop you from buying this fab book for yourself if you are new to jewelry making and jewelry design. Just save it, studying it off and on, for when you are slightly more adept! The learning curve for motivated jewelry artists is very fast. And this book WILL motivate and inspire you! Things will "fall into place", due to this book.
Additionally, there are some easier projects in the book which you can do right away if you wish, or even some bits of projects you can practice your skills on. I repeat, the incentive, because the projects are so beautiful, is very high, so you WILL want to learn.
The author's sense of design is unerring and delightful. Custom Cool Jewelry is a great book to own and use as a reference for your own custom jewelry!
Not for me
Rating:
I see this book has appeal for most reviewers and that's great, but I have to say I was disappointed in it and returned the book. While one reviewer said it was not for beginners, I think experienced jewelry artists and mixed media artists (or those who have read many books and magazines on the subject) may feel, like I did, that there's nothing new here.
One Very Cool Book!
Rating:
It's all about the pendant in Melinda's book and that's a good thing. You'll be able to create mixed media necklaces with unique one of a kind pendants. There are plenty of options for the reader with over 200 pendants, charms and clasps. The book has four chapters: pendants, charms, clasps and finished projects. The reader learns how to etch, use shrink plastic, cabachons, tins and more. Small pendants are really charms which you'll learn to create in chapter two.
I love the wide range of techniques included in Melinda's book. The reader is not confined to learning one technique and the jewelry one can make with just one technique. If you don't like shrink plastic, you can make an etched pendant. Mixed Media is very hot right now and Melinda's book holds all the DIY secrets you'll need to create jewelry that is a personal expression of you. Melinda has written one very cool book!
Empowering Design Ideas...
Rating:
If you're privy to the booming DIY scene, then you know that "custom" is the new IT word. Turn on any home improvement show or open any craft magazine and you'll see the word being used to denote something a step above the rest. Why? When Big Business cranks out carbon copy style after carbon copy style, individual and personalized imagery and objects are a welcome escape - a breath of fresh air in an often times stagnant pool of overly-recycled ideas and motifs.
Melinda Barta, the managing editor of Beadwork and Stringing magazines, is definitely in touch with the movement away from pre-fab "style" and towards a more distinct design - your own. With her new book from Interweave Press, Custom Cool Jewelry, she empowers the reader with over 200 projects. Not only does she give valuable tips on making your own pendants, charms, and clasps, but she presents several stringing ideas to use your newly created custom pieces. This book is LOADED with useful ideas that spark the imagination and provoke potential.
Melinda has a bevy of knowledge from working on various magazines (including PieceWork magazine), being author of Hip to Stitch: 20 Contemporary Projects Embellished with Thread, having a BFA in Fiber Arts from Colorado State University and being a teacher at schools across the country, including the prestigious Penland School of Crafts. She uses this versatile experience to enrich Custom Cool Jewelry and deliver projects from a truly unique perspective.
What I love best about Custom Cool Jewelry is that it is a spring board for endless creativity. It fundamentally teaches the reader how to open up their personal style toolbox and use what's inside. A lot of craft and jewelry books simply dole out formulas on how to duplicate someone else's ideas. Custom Cool Jewelry is different. It enables the reader to make stunning jewelry of high quality from their own well of inspiration, utilizing the creative and truly cool ideas offered up by Melinda Barta in this must-have book.
I definitely recommend this book!
This is my New Favorite Craft Book!
Rating:
I found this book at the local bookstore, and bought it immediately. It was worth every penny. There is inspiration for almost everyone...Beading, Polymer Clay, Shrink Art, Altered Art....Pop Art. I liked the fact that the book was not really geared toward a total beginner. As an experienced crafter, I prefer to not pay for half of a book full of basic how-to instructions with only a few projects shown. The photos are great, as are the projects themselves. The ideas are fresh and most are quite simple. On the down side, many of the projects featured require the purchase of specialty findings and and bits that could add up to quite a bit of cash. However, the resource guide in the back of the book lead me to many great sites for products I didn't even know I wanted.
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