Book Review: Create Jewelry: Crystals

By Sandy Amazeen Aug 28, 2007, 2:56 GMT

Jewelry lovers including such notables as Marie Antoinette have long appreciated the beauty of crystals with their fiery flashes and dazzling colors. Beginning with what makes a crystal, both natural and manmade, the book immediately moves on to the twenty projects starting with Classics where the beauty of Herkimer “diamonds” are featured in a simple bracelet.  The “Royal Tapestry” bracelet uses an array of different seed beads and crystals to create a magic carpet of color. The warm, elegant “Toujours Topaz” necklace shown in the Special Occasion chapter uses two sizes of polygon drops in addition to bicones and seed beads. Although it looks complicated, clear step-by-step instructions and full color illustrations make construction simple enough for a beginner to tackle successfully. “Crystals in Camelot” combines simple wirewrapped sterling rings with pearls, crystals and seed beads in a dramatic centerpiece on this front fastening necklace. In Fashion Forward look for the simple, effective “Ruby Dreams” pendant and think about using up some of your bead stash in the five strand “Lush Layers” bracelet.

Especially nice to see following the techniques section is a resources guide listing supply sources for each project along with contact information thus greatly simplifying locating special findings. What makes this more then a basic “how-to” book is the assortment of trivia and other fun stuff liberally sprinkled throughout. Learn the legend and truth of the crystal “skull of doom,” check out the world’s largest transparent, colorless crystal ball and discover how the Swarovski Company got started while discovering the joy of creating crystal jewelry.