Jewellery Making Books

Jewellery Making: A Complete Course for Beginners

by Jinks McGrath (author)

Whilst exhibiting at a recent four day 'Craft and Design Fair' held at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, I became aware of just how much interest there is in jewellery making - from simple glass beaded jewellery to the more comprehensive skills required in making precious jewellery. Many of the visitors asked me to advise them on which jewellery making books I would suggest as being useful for an 'apprentice jewellery maker' or craft worker.

It is not easy to make a general recommendation because jewellery making is a vast subject and the skills required will depend on the type of jewellery the craft worker wishes to make! However I will start by recommending a fairly comprehensive jewellery making book that I feel benefits any would-be jewellery maker. In later blogs I will look at specific areas of study in the field of jewellery making and suggest suitable reading material for each.

"Jewellery Making: A Complete Course for Beginners" is very definitely a complete course in designing and jewellery making. Carefully structured tutorials guide you through every stage of the jewellery making process, revealing how to translate inspired ideas into workable, wearable jewellery designs, and you'll find professional advice on presenting and selling your work too.

Learn about tools, equipment and safe working practices; how to build an inspirations file; select suitable materials and transfer your jewellery designs; work with precious and semi-precious stones, metals, glass, plastic, resin and wood. Clear, step-by-step photographs demonstrate all the techniques you will need, at-a-glance panels explain the effect that different techniques have on a variety of metals, and practical exercises provide guidance in tricky skills - with ideas for trying these out on inexpensive substitutes before using your chosen materials.

This is not just a jewellery making book with an attractive cover! This book takes the jewellery maker through the whole process from start to finish. There are comprehensive chapters outlining not only many useful techniques and 'tricks of the trade' but how to set up and equip your own jewellery studio. The jewellery making projects are laid out in easy to follow steps with illustrative photographs to help make everything easy to understand. The book could be used to create step by step lessons in a structured jewellery making course. This practical book will be very useful to all jewellery makers.

It's great value for money too!

Have a look through some of the highlighted books we recommend below. Simply click on a book of interest for more information: