I’m going to admit right away that I learned a lot about making jewelry from Karin Buckingham, author of the new book Mostly Metals: A Beginner’s Guide to Jewelry Design. When I worked down the hall at Kalmbach Books, Karin was right around the corner, ready to answer all my questions. So you’ll have to forgive me if I seem a little biased about this book.

Karin’s a creative soul, but she takes a practical approach to explaining jewelry design. As she says in the introduction to the book, “…[M]ore than techniques, I hope to teach you some of the logic behind good design — what works, when, and why — to help you make informed choices as you begin to create your original, fabulous jewelry.” Karin not only shares the basic techniques of jewelry making, fundamentals like plain loops, wrapped loops, and jump rings, she also includes tips to help you really master these skills and understand when it’s best to use them. This means better looking, better wearing jewelry — the goal of every designer or jewelry enthusiast.

Mostly Metals starts with a photo-illustrated guide to the basic materials and tools, and then demonstrates each technique with an array of step-by-step projects. There are plenty of beads in each chapter, but the focus is on the design capabilities of metal components like head pins, jump rings, chain, and spacers. This is a great book for beginners, but experienced jewelry makers who want to better understand basic jewelry design will find valuable information as well. If you’ve even wondered whether to use a plain loop or a wrapped loop in a project, or you want to know the difference between Hill Tribes, Bali, or Rajasthani silver, you’ll find answers here. Karin’s also included some creative ideas for using common materials in non-traditional ways.

If you’ll be joining us for the Bead&Button Show in Milwaukee next week, you can see Karin there at booth 401.