Skip to main content

Book Review: Stamped Metal Jewelry By Lisa Niven Kelly



Lisa Niven Kelly is the founder of Beaducation.com, a wonderful website for jewellery supplies and online step-by-step video jewellery-making classes.
I've seen her work featured in several magazines - Bead & Button, Step-by-Step Wire, Beadwork and Art Jewelry, so when I decided to try my hand at stamped metal jewellery her new book was the obvious choice.

With sections covering materials and tools, basic metalsmithing techniques and getting started stamping, this book is a very good starting point. A 33 minute instructional DVD is included with the book showing the techniques covered. Learning how to rivet is now my new favourite technique!

There are 19 projects in the book with instructions on how to make a variety of stamped pendants, rings and bracelets, including designs by jewellery makers such as Janice Berkebile, Tracy Stanley and Connie Fox.

The book also includes a resources section covering basic wirework techniques and a supplies source.

 Whether you just want to produce beautiful personalised stamped jewellery or fancy letting your imagination run wild with your own unique designs, I would recommend "Stamped Metal Jewelry" as a starting point for learning this cool jewellery-making technique.


 
Stamp photo courtesy of Beaducation.com
Labels:

Comments

  1. SophieThursday, August 05, 2010

    I've read about this book, and have entered a giveaway in Make Jewellery magazine to win one. I probably won't be lucky enough to win it, but may just buy it after reading this review :) It looks like loads of fun, and I'm doing a silversmithing class in October. x

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFriday, August 06, 2010

    I do love stamped jewellery. If you get the right stamps you can easily produce gorgeous stuff... but we need to get the stamps in the UK!!
    Gemxxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cinnamon JewelleryFriday, August 06, 2010

    I agree Gem, It's so frustrating having to order everything from the US.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.

Popular posts from this blog

Combining Soldering And Enamel

The need to make cute, brightly coloured enamel studs propelled me into the world of combining soldering with enamel a couple of years ago. I knew from reading up on it that it was possible to enamel and solder on the same piece but wasn't too confident I was able to do it back then. It was a slightly embarrassing occurance that made me just get on with - I'd made some enamel studs with glued on stud posts. I'd used 2 part epoxy resin which was a job in itself as it set hard after 5 minutes so I had to keep mixing more up. The finished studs looked ok but that little voice in my head kept asking "are you sure you want to use glue?" I wasn't but didn't think I had any other way to do it so I used glue. I sold my first pair and merrily sent them on their way to Canada. A couple of week later the buyer got in touch to say the stud post had come off one of the earrings and the other was hanging off. I was mortified, apologized profusely and refunded her m...
32 comments
Read more

Torch Enamelling - What I've been Up To Recently!

I've admired enamelled jewellery for a while now and not too long ago did a blog post about Etsy seller tekaandzoe  and her wonderful kiln enamelled creations. I didn't think at the time that it was something I would ever be able to do as the cost of kilns plus lack of space would be a problem for me. That wasn't until I saw an advert for a torch enamelling tutorial from US jewellery supplies website Beaducation  by Steven James . It's a great tutorial showing the basics on how to torch enamel on copper. Of course I bought it! I then spent hours scouring the internet for more information on torch enamelling, where to buy the tools I'd need and of course the enamel powders. There are quite a few UK sites selling enamelling supplies and tools but as usual I found the US sites had more choice (why do we always lag behind?) I bought some enamel powders from a couple of UK sites to begin with - Cookson Gold have a good selection but bear in mind th...
37 comments
Read more

Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern".  I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or...
34 comments
Read more