Multistrand Jewelry- Secrets for Success is a collection of projects from the publishers of Bead Style Magazine. I like these types of collections because they have several designers creating lots of different effects and looks using the same basic techniques. This collection focuses on stringing multistrand jewelry.

The introduction includes basic techniques and tools, and a brief overview of beads and findings. There are also some tips for successful designs.

Bead stringing seems very easy, but creating pieces that are well balanced and that match a person's unique style is challenging. One of the nice things about stringing is that most strung pieces are very wearable. They can be bold or elegant or perfect for casual wear just based on the beads and focal points used.

This is almost all necklaces with a few bracelet projects, mostly strung on beading wire, but a few use other stringing materials. Each project is well explained with step by step instructions and great full color photographs. Each projects lists the techniques and quite a few them show a couple different examples so you can see how it looks using different colors and beads.

My favorites include:
The asymmetrical Half & Half by Shruti Gautam Dev. It's an easy to personalize necklace that is shown in a couple of examples how bead choices can affect the appearance of the piece dramatically.

Rebecca Conrad's Fiesta Necklace is my second favorite because it's a great use for bead soup. If you are a normally a bead weaver, this easy necklace makes a bright, colorful statement using mixed seed beads.

The cover necklace, A New Slant on Bails by Mary Champion which uses bails in a new way to create a neat shape for an asymmetrical necklace.

Spectrum Snapshot bracelet by Anne Nikolai Kloss, which uses spacer bars and multistrand findings for a simply strung bracelet that's quite elegant.

This book is perfect for beginning bead stringers. The projects are very well explained, simple to make and show a bit of the possibilities that exist outside of mirror symmetry for stringing multistrand jewelry.

U.S.A. U.K.

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Published by Kalmbach Books who kindly provided a copy to me free of charge for review purposes. My reviews are always my honest opinion.
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