Designing Jewelry with semiprecious beads by Kim Gover Kim Gover's beautiful book, Designing Jewelry with semiprecious beads, urges you back to your roots if your first love was stones, as mine was. If that was not where you began your jewelry journey, congratulations! Here is the book to learn from about designing with semiprecious stones! You may think they are all expensive, but this is not the case. There is a good guide within the book which marks with dollar signs how expensive the range for each type of stone is, along with photos of the stone, a bit of lore about it, where it is sourced, and some of the forms it comes in, such as rounds, rondelles, etc. There is no question that I thoroughly enjoy equally wandering into mixed media, lampwork (the author is a lampwork artist as well, and there is a lovely necklace with a lampwork bead on it in this book), polymer, plastic and other types of beads used for designing. However, once again, because of this book, I intensely understand to my core what it is to gather up that first strand of semiprecious stones, and hold it up to the light. It becomes a sort of glorious potential in my fingers, calling to me as a designer to work with it! As you can see, I feel this is a great book! With over seventy five projects from a variety of designers, who lay out their techniques beautifully clearly, with explanations for why something goes with what, and wonderful photography, the author hits a complete home run with this collection of inspiring, glamorous, lyrical, colorful, fascinatingly put together pieces. I wish that this had been my first jewelry book. The reason for this is that if you can design with color, understand your stones, learn your techniques, and get a lesson in what semiprecious stones have meant since each type was discovered, you have a book to return to time and time again. You will learn to make wraps on beads, use head pins and eye pins, knot onto a clasp, knot cups on a multistrand piece, and more. As well you will learn how to choose which stones to put with which other stones. This is where people might consider beginning when they are eager to learn everything but don't want to lay out the cash for a number of books or DVDs or online tutorials. Specifically, if you want to learn about, or to work with colored semiprecious stones, even just seeing what the newest ones like Larimar look like, if you want to perfect your design layout, or your understanding of WHAT those materials are you are working with, what you will generally need to expect to spend, and what sort of cuts you might be able to find, along with (deep breath!) what kinds of tools you will need, and what sorts of styles you might like to try, you will see that here is a panoply of beautiful ideas available for you to peruse.

A super job by author Kim Gover and her contributors, Designing Jewelry with semiprecious beads is well worth your time!

jean