Creating Wooden Jewelry: 24 Skill-Building Projects and Techniques

Description

The first-ever comprehensive guide to creating wooden jewelry, learn and practice several woodworking skills - including jointing, turning, steaming, polishing, staining, painting, beveling, inlaying, and more - to discover a brand new art perspective! Combining wood with other media, from silver to silicon, you'll learn 10 techniques and create 14 beautiful and accessible jewelry projects that are fresh and modern, going beyond metal. Author and renowned artist jeweler Sarah King works with materials, form, and structure to make sculptural, contemporary, and feminine jewelry. Her work has been sold in department stores, design stores, boutiques, and galleries, including Barney's, Liberty of London, The Conran Shop, and more. She has won many awards, such as the Association of Contemporary Jewelry Prize, and is one of only 50 international contemporary jewelers invited to show at the LOOT exhibition at the New York Museum of Arts and Design. With Creating Wooden Jewelry , you'll learn from one of the best to understand everything you need to know to create stunning wooden jewelry, as well as a rotating cast of talented project guests, such as Inni Parnanen, Terhi Tolvanen, Beppe Kessler, and Lina Peterson. Review: Beautiful and well-organised, but well-equipped workshop needed - This book features some interesting techniques and lovely pictures, but is definitely not aimed at the beginner. You would need some experience of both jewellery-making and woodworking to be able to replicate any of the pieces. Many of the projects feature large, chunky wearable wood, and although striking and impressive they were not the sort of thing I'd consider wearing. They look big and uncomfortable, designed to be statement pieces which would look great on someone else. The techniques are explained very well and photographed beautifully, however the long list of tools required for each piece is off-putting and a bit scary. Most people don't have a workshop with a belt sander, lathe, band saw, pillar drill and riveting hammer, but the author does mention that there are community workshops in many towns which would have the equipment and hopefully some friendly faces to get you started. There is a great chapter on "decorating wood" which does not require lots of tools, and the methods shown are quite simple. I will definitely give some of them a try. Other positives are the use of 'found wood' and easily-obtainable wooden spoons. I'm giving this 3 stars but perhaps I'm being mean as it's both beautiful and well-organised, and no doubt lots of other readers will love the big, chunky pieces. Review: Neat projects - Neat projects