Mary Hettmansperger

This is another free book for review from Lark Crafts. Thanks, Lark! This is a large 8.5" x 11" book with gorgeous violet-lavender endpapers. In flipping through, I noticed that it shows predominantly earth tones, but every once and a while is a spark of color, which is a good tool to catch the reader's interest. I also noticed a lot of spiral motifs in the book.

After the introduction, which mostly sells the books and doesn't introduce the author much, the book launches right into a section show more on materials (pg.8-27). This section is well illustrated and I particularly liked the subheading fonts. The section is also LONG and includes photos of items such as Liver of Sulfur, gloves and earplugs, disk cutter & punches, tripod for firing and a bench grinder. Interspersed with these scary looking tools are photos of jewelry, presumably to soften the blow for a new jeweler. The Basic Techniques section is also quite long (pg.29-51). Each part of the basic techniques section gives step by step instructions for creating a new texture or applying a technique and then shows an example of the end result. I am pleased the author and publisher thought it was worthwhile to document and illustrate these foundation sections so thoroughly.

There are 21 projects included, each spanning about 4 pages. Lots of illustrations and drawings are included with each project. Templates are frequently included as well and often variations are shown in photos to spark creativity. I like the Colored Tin Collection project, the Mixed Metal Bracelet project, especially the variations, and the Orange Enamel Choker, though I might want to put the pendant on a different chain.

This seems to be a great book for adding texture to your metal projects. show less

I hate books like this. It says rivet in the title. There is a project that uses commercial rivets instead of the wire rivets usually explained in jewelry books. But when you get the book home and examine the project in detail, you find out that she just skips the rivet step altogether. Nor is there a source for parts. So I don't know what kind of rivets she used and whether she hammered them herself or used a rivet gun.

That said, there are some really interesting projects in the book that show more seem to be described in enough detail to do them, though I suspect many of them will require more steps than are depicted or more help (like epoxy and soldering) than is shown.

Buyer beware. show less

This book has clear directions for the five fiber making techniques in the title. It also has a bunch of inspirational projects using both metal and fiber. The metals are most often copper and craft wire. The author also has some interesting ideas of incorporating found objects into jewelry.

Beautiful inspiration book for cold connections in metal jewelry making for the torch-challenged artisan. Original and funky design projects are well illustrated and often with different metals. The designs are rather like art pieces .Techniques covered include wire wrapping, stitching, weaving - all with wire. She uses a sharpened sxrewdriver to punch holes!!