Beautiful Leather Jewelry book Review

Here's another great book from Kalmbach books. This one comes to us from Melissa Cable, called, Beautiful Leather Jewelry, timeless techniques for today's trends. Melissa is a mixed media artist who love to develope new designs and techniques with traditional and non-traditional materials from metal, leather, wood, clay and found objects. Since I, too, love leather and metal this book really called to me, putting leather, metal and other components together in great jewelry pieces.
She starts off with the Basics for Leatherworking using her 'key' to how leather works and how you can use it in your projects. The first section covers the different types of leather besides cow leather. Things like Snakeskin, Fish leathers (which I've been hearing more and more about and what to try as soon as I can find some) and even Ostrich leather. Melissa also covers the different types of tanning, dyeing and grades of leather besides how to purchase it and even recycle it.
The next section covers the different tools to use as well as equivalents you may already have at home to use on your leather. This includes things like stamps, corrugators and even mallets/hammers to use to texture/shape your leather. Next is a section on hardware to use to finish your leather or decorate it and then finishing it to make clasps/closures for your pieces. There's even a part on Special Effects for your leather like dyes, paints, and sealants for your leather pieces.
Then she moves into Making Leather jewelry starting with Technique Tutorials and then the Jewelry projects. I really like cuff bracelet, so the tutorials on cuffs really intrigued me. The Mesa Pendant was interesting to me, too, since I love texture and the stacked pieces were cool.  2 of my favorite projects were the Four Seasons collar since I also really like collars and the textured leather discs and metal discs together combined 2 of my favorite mediums.

The next one is the Laurel Necklace, because I really love nature and loved the shape, look and texture of the leather leaves in this necklace.
Finally at the end is a section on Beads and More Jewelry from leather. I especially liked the Rolled Leather Column Beads with the rivet decoration in them. I can see myself using these a lot in my jewelry projects. If using leather is something you've wanted to learn more about in your projects, check out Kalmbach books for Melissa Cable's book, Beautiful Leather Jewelry.
Here is a Leather/Metal bracelet I made for my Patina challenge I was in that was inspired by my reading Melissa's book. It uses Leather, metal, rivets, chain, patina and cogs/gears in it.

If you're interested in my 'Find Your Way to My Heart' bracelet or any of my other jewelry check out my shop, KayzKreationz. There you will also find my Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass 'kreationz' for your Home and Garden.

Spotlight on Wire Book Review

My newest book review is Spotlight on Wire by Melissa Cable.  It is published by Kalmbach books.  They have an amazing variety of books on all types of Jewelry designs, techniques and more.  This book is a great example.  Melissa has done an amazing job highlighting so many different techniques, design ideas for wire.  She owned beadclub bead store in Woodinville, Washington for 7 years and quickly realized her passion for creating and teaching students projects that would allow them to not only learn fun skills, but walk away with a finished piece.  And she has accomplished that with this book.  She starts out with How to Use the Book and all the abbreviations you'll see throughout all the projects.  She also has Spotlights on Tips and Techniques, Basics and Tools throughout the book. Then she delves right in.  Chapter 1 deals with woven Wire.  I especially love the very first project in the book and this chapter, clustered Jewels and how to make a flat rectangular focal really stand out. I can't wait to try this.  Chapter 2 talks about Textured strip wire and has the neatest idea for a 'Poor-man's Rolling Mill'.  I'm anxious to try this out, too.  And a sneak peak/tip, I got my idea for one of my Bead Soup Blog Party pieces/focal bale from this chapter.  So watch for it on the 20th of this month.  Chapter 3 helps us out with Corrugated Wire.  Roundabout Road and Rippled Bangle are great examples of this and next on my list to try from this chapter.  Chapter 4 deals with Heavy Wire.  Chapter 5 moves on to Chain and Wire and Chapter 6 finishes off with Basics.  If you're looking to widen out in your skill with wire in your jewelry work, this is a fantastic book. You won't regret adding it to your Jewelry Library.  It's for sale here at Kalmbach Books.  Here's just a sample or two to whet your appetite for this wonderful book.

Be sure to keep watching my shop, KayzKreationz for unique jewelry pieces made from inspiration from this book.  I also carry Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass pieces for your Home and Garden.

 

(The book above was provided by Kalmbach Books for review. The author of this blog has not received any other payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.)