Learn to Bead

I get asked a lot to teach people how to bead, unfortunately we don't always live near enough for it to be possible. So, I'm recommending this book: Teach Yourself VISUALLY Jewelry Making & Beading

I chose to recommend this book over others because it has both beginning techniques as well as more intermediate ones. I like that it combines bead stringing, bead weaving, macrame and wire work all in one resource. It also includes a very nice index that makes it easy to refer back to and quickly find what you need.

The pictures are clear, the directions are easy to read and there are many ideas for beginner through advanced beaders. Thorough charts detail everything from the common lengths for various styles of necklaces (both men's and women's), bracelets, and anklets to common finishing methods for different materials. Photos clearly display techniques for knotting strings, creating eyepins, headpins and clasps, and even making your own Byzantine chain from jump rings. Wire gauge is demonstrated visually, with gauge's thickness and examples of what each gauge is used for. Teach Yourself VISUALLY Jewelry Making & Beading is a wonderful teaching AND refrence book for jewlery makers of all skill levels. Clicking on any of the links or the photo in this post will take you to Amazon where you can read more reviews and see some of the pages within the book.

Have you been reading the Journals?

A while back I blogged about the Journals of Louviere. For those of you that missed my previous blog, it's a story about a door to door bead salesman and all the strange happenings going on around him. It's fun to read about the people this guy interacts with and how his beads touch their lives. There's some exiting twists to it also. The story is as yet unfinished - or at lease not yet completely published to its web site.

Every couple of weeks a few more pages are added. Reading it always leaves me wanting more. If you haven't checked it out recently you should. It's about 5 times times longer than it was the last time I wrote about it.

The link above will take you to the intro page about the journals. If you scroll all the way to the bottom you'll find the links to the pages from the journals. Happy Reading!

The Journals of Louviere

Someone recommended an online bead store and I thought I'd check it out. I can never resist a good deal on beads. But what I found there was something much different - The Journals of Louviere.

Apparently the owner (or at least someone with a connection to that online beadstore) was remodeling his home and discovered some journals hidden inside of a wall. These journals were written by a door-to-door bead salesman. I'm not sure if the story is true or not, but it makes for an interesting read. The intro to the story that tells how the journals were found have a completely different tone and writing style than the journal entries themselves, so I think that lends some credibilty to the truth of it.

Anyhow, it's fun to read about the people this guy interacted with and how his beads touched their lives. I'm reading only one page each day because there are so many other things I need to do. I'm not very far yet, but it always leaves me wanting to read more. I highly recommend it. The link above will take you to the intro page about the journals. If you scroll all the way to the bottom you'll find the links to the pages from the journal. Enjoy!