Simply Stylish Chain and Metal Jewelry

The chic look of metal and chain is skyrocketing in popularity. Simply Stylish Chain & Metal Jewelry dazzles with its emphasis on sophisticated styles. Arranged by chapters on necklaces, bracelets and earrings, the book offers innovative ideas for making jewelry that looks like it came from a top-drawer store—at a fraction of the cost! Starring beads, crystals, gemstones and pearls, this fun guide will bring out the creative genius in beaders at every level of experience.

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Author: From BeadStyle magazine
Softcover; 8 1/4 x 10 3/4; 88 pages; 293 color photos; ISBN: 9780871162977

From the editors of BeadStyle magazine

Introduction 4
Basics 5
Tools 6
Materials 7
Metal & Chain 8

Necklaces 9
Chain reigns 10
Combine a variety of chains in an extra long necklace
Starry night 12
An etched copper pendant falls from a moonlit sky
The bead-and-chain diet 14
Create a slimming jewelry piece
Trinkets from the deep 16
This necklace captures the romance of sunken treasure
Antique technique 18
Oxidize new silver to create a delicate, heirloom-style necklace
Double Take 21
Create a clever two-tiered necklace
Show your metal 24
Create mixed-metal necklaces with chains, washers, and double-circle components

Bracelets 27
Beau jangles 28
Wire dainty beads to metal bracelets for up-to-the-minute style
Grab the brass ring 30
Mix assorted chains with a round focal piece for a prize bracelet
Win a silver metal 33
Make a sterling silver bracelet in under 30 minutes
Ready-to-wear hardware 34
Link common washers into an uncommonly fashionable bracelet
Chained pearls 36
Pearls and a variety of links draw attention
Pretty in paisley 38
These curvy links are the perfect place to nestle some crystals

Earrings 39
The mix is in 40
Mixed-metal earrings - yesterday’s faux pas, today’s clever accessory
Gypsy jewels 43
Crystals drift from chains in distinctive earrings
Modern metal earrings 46
Chain, links, and jump rings give these easy earrings a modern edge
It’s a breeze 48
Whip up cascade earrings in a flurry of seasonal colors
Aquamarine earrings 50
Catch a metal fish bead on a length of chain

Jewelry sets 51
Real Venetian beads string true 52
Spectacular beads go a long way when paired with distinctive chain
Printed portals 55
Sample a parade of pendants
Create a cool patina 58
Patinated copper puts a necklace, bracelet, and earrings in blue mode
Quick silver 61
Complex shapes add drama to a simple design
Create an elegant drape with beads and chain 64
Angular chain balances gemstones in a necklace-and-earrings set
With these rings 67
Create a multitextured necklace-and-earrings set
Spoon style, baby 70
Turn silverware into silver-worn jewelry
Chain maker 72
Layer cable and rope chains in a chunky necklace and bracelet
Balanced drape 75
Chandelier components give a necklace and bracelet a flexible design
Copper concept 78
Link copper beads with silver chain for a gleaming necklace-and-earrings set
Moving in fashionable circles 80
Join different-sized silver and gold hoops with jump rings
Mix it up with metal 84
A disk pendant offers multiple design opportunities

Contributors 87

Be sure to check out this one from publishers of Bead Style magazine: "Simply Stylish Chain and Metal Jewelry". In addition to chain and metal, the book also has gorgeous projects incorporating beads, crystals, gemstones, and pearls. Combining beadwork with prefabricated metal and chain is a great way to save time (and add to the perceived value, especially if you use sterling and gold). And as with all of the projects from Bead Style magazine, the step by step instructions are very good.
-Beadweaver

There are 30 stunning projects in this book. All are delightfully different enough to intrigue a novice or tempt a seasoned beader into diving into the world of chain and metal. Come on in, the water is great! Take it from me! Chain, and anything made of metal, are two of my absolute favorite basics to work with as well as to decorate with when I design.
It is like alchemy! Amaze yourself as your designs morph extraordinarily from one style into another.With this book guiding you, you will quickly see that if you just use your own discerning eye, and a pair of chain cutters, along with some other simple tools(handily mentioned in the introduction),you will be delighted with your creations. I have actually already made one of the projects in Simply Stylish Chain & Metal Jewelry. When it first appeared in BeadStyle magazine, I completely fell in love with this charming and innovative bracelet. I wrote the designer, and asked for permission to make her design and post it in my own site gallery, crediting her of course. She said that would be all right. One of my friends wears it now all the time, as a gift from me. Now I want another for myself! The project is called READY-TO-WEAR HARDWARE, designed by the wonderful Lindsay Haedt. If you like chain maille, and you have a hankering to hang around in hardware stores, this is one for YOU! Take a look at the cover of Simply Stylish Chain & Metal Jewelry and you will get a bit of an idea of the diversity you will be finding inside. The largest cover photo is quite a remarkable bracelet which I would guess almost anyone would really love learning to make. The wonderful thing is, although it appears very complex, it is fairly simple to create! The amount of different sizes of the chains combined with the different colors of the chains look exotic, beautiful and absolutely enticing. Add to that the twists and turns this gorgeous bracelet takes, and the charms hanging from the front brass ring and you have what looks like a "one of a kind" designer bracelet coming at you from a mile away! It is so hip, and so chic, I dare you to not to page through until you get to Grab the brass ring, by Brenda Schweder to get a closer look.
Do you like color? Quick silver by Carol McKinney, a stringing project, is total perfection, employing stunning turquoise oval nuggets perfectly balanced with sterling rectangles used as the focal aspect of the necklace. It's a stringing project you can alter by using different sorts of beads (like ceramic), and there is a matching earring suggestion as well.
Despite the passing thought that you might look like Xena the Warrior if you are wearing loads of chain or metal these days, both are easy to work up into incredibly upscale feminine designs.
For example, Rupa Balachandar has a project which is luminous, original, and appropriate for many special occasions. Gemstone chips or Keishi pearls, and round or rectangular coin pearls combine with a delicate golden strand of long and short chain which acts as a longer pendant, accenting its "sister" pearl necklace by finishing with a double dangle of coin pearls and a pair of tiny gemstone chips or pearls: whichever you have chosen for your project. It's lovely.
Cathy Jakicic uses a bead board to make another feminine necklace. This one is wire wrapped. It is a triple strand of golden chain, composed of two different sizes, but similar oval shaped links. She cleverly makes the uppermost chain look different from the lowest chain by cutting the lengths between the links differently, then wiring the beads on. The beads are stunning. They are all Venetian and are tones of golds, greens, steely silvery blues, and one focal Venetian bead which is different from all the others. The focal is eye catching: a two tone rectangular Venetian bead on the largest chain. That chain is in the middle, perfectly wired and perfectly framed.
I would love to take you by the hand and walk you through this whole book, but I don't want to deprive you of the thrill of discovering what you will find appealing in Simply Stylish Chain & Metal Jewelry on your own: the gems with chain, the polymer clay with chain, the patinated copper links... I think you will really get energized by what you find here!
I expect you will return time and again to learn more about what is just the right style for yourself as you read this excellent book.
-Jean Yates
http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com/2010/04/book-review-by-jean-simply-sylish-chain.html

Simply Stylish Chain and Metal Jewelry tells how to craft earrings, necklaces and bracelets from chain and metal, profiling over thirty projects that feature clear color photos and step-by-step easy instructions. No special metalworking skills are needed here - and most projects can be constructed using store-bought chain. A top pick for any jewelry-making collection.
-The Midwest Book Review