Customer Reviews

Beyond The Bead: Making Jewelry With Unexpected Finds

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With such a large assortment of materials and methods mixed together, anyone who enjoys mixing it up will enjoy this book. If you have already tried working with beads and are looking for a way to expand your jewelry skills that does not require setting up a fancy workshop with high-end equipment, then this is packed full of ideas. Read the full review here: http://jewelrymaking.about.com/od/mixedmediabookreviews/fr/122208.htm

If you are not yet familiar with Margot Potter, and with her generous, openhearted manner of teaching, you are in for a delightful surprise. You are going to enjoy all sorts of exciting new techniques to savor, think about, and store away for the next time you need inspiration! New things are headed your way in this great book, Beyond the Bead. In fact, in every case, you will be charmed by them!

Author Margot has a solid background of classical teaching in the jewelry arena, and yet in each of her books (Margot becomes more prolific every year!) I discover, once again, that her flat out brilliance urges the reader forward, and, together with her genuine enthusiasm, the deal is clinched, art wise.
Margot has a "voice", and it is pure, fun, and clear. When she creates, her voice is very distinctive in each project. On the other hand, the reader can take what he or she wants from each tutorial and learn super fun and different ways to challenge the art process. As Margot says in her introduction, "Think of this book as a series of pathways down which you might wander...Follow your intuition and see where it leads..."

Good advice from one of the major leaders in the jewelry and craft design fields!

After the initial introduction and listings of what is required for tools and techniques, Margot welcomes you into a magical world called The Looking Glass. This includes techniques for working with glass. Her stained glass project is particularly lovely, and, as always, the author demonstrates her knack for combining fantastic colors together.
Note that each chapter is quite hefty and full of projects: the next one is Plastic Fantastic and very appealing! Many of us could use a bit of help learning the ins and outs of working with plastic. This is a great book with which to start honing your plastic technique! Her first project, Nice and Naughty, is excellent. I also love the project Buddhalicious in this chapter! Such a rainbow of shimmery joy! You will want to learn to make this when you see it!
The next chapter, Cyber Crafty, is a wonder of new ways to use digital images in your jewelry designs. There is loveliness in little books and pendant collages, and if you have ever wondered how to make them, here you go! Lettres D'Amour has your name all over it!
I wish to impress upon you (a bit of a pun!) that none of these projects are terribly difficult. On the other hand, they look like a million bucks. What more could you ask of a design book? I find the concept thrilling!

Ephemerally Yours is the chapter which follows. It is a fascinating collection of demonstrations concerning how to create jewelry incorporating ephemera. I feel that Margot has a strong talent for this, and I adore every project in this chapter. I look forward to learning more about how to utilize this sort of technique!
The chapter Scrapped follows. Of course it involves scrap booking supplies. How fun! A featured project from the book's cover, I'll Fly Away, appears here, and if you have seen the cover I know you will agree that it is so breathtakingly lovely! It is a poem in a jewelry set! The greens are so soft and beautiful. The stamped birds and nest with eggs imprinted upon the pendant and earrings are fantastic. You will adore this design piece! It is created to look like faux enamel. It does indeed!
In the following chapter, another piece which graces the books cover wows you: Something Blue. I simply do not know many designers who have the sense of color which Margot has. It is hers and hers alone! This beautiful piece is amazing! It is as if someone has deepened the color of fine turquoise and made it a turquoise flame, then suspended it from gunmetal chain. It is super!

That chapter is called Mud Pies, and the necklace is made of polymer. The final chapter follows and is called Mrs. Fix it, a great name for techniques for working with metal! I decided to let you in on the last project in the book: it is a beauty! I don't think too many people could have come up with this other than Margot Potter! Using a metal necklace blank beneath, Margot laid out hardware store washers in all sorts of sizes and covered them with blended inks. She used metal friendly glue to adhere them to the necklace blank, and it has a prize winning drama and impact. You will just have to buy this book to see it and try it for yourself!

I wish to congratulate Margot on this remarkably beautiful, truly hip and fun to use book. I can never believe that she manages to find the time to come up with these fabulous ideas. Yet, she does. Life is short. Margot savors every bit of it! I look forward to the next wonders which Margot comes up with, as she skips, soars, hops, and jumps down the path of joyful creativity every day of her life.

Take this book and learn to make fantastic things from it! I guarantee you that you will adore it!

I don't dip into mixed media very often. I think the techniques make beautiful things, but I just don't make many purely "art" pieces, which is where these techniques often seem to shine. In Beyond the Bead, however, I get nice bite-sized chunks of mixed media, presented in a form I can enjoy using. I also think Margot Potter's instruction is fantastic. Every technique, right down to the basic wire loop, is illustrated with clear step-by-step photos. I'm always so happy to see that in any craft book.

Because mixed media techniques often require specialized supplies, Margot has smartly included the manufacturers' names for most of the supplies in the project materials lists. That's so much nicer than having to flip to a Resources section at the back of the book.

It's also impressive how many different techniques are covered in these 127 pages. The book is divided into sections for glass, plastic, digital images, ephemera, scrapbooking supplies, clay, and metal - and each section contains something I'd never seen before. My brain was totally mixing and matching techniques as I flipped through. If mixed media intimidates you, this is a great introduction. And if you're a jewelry-maker, Beyond the Bead will give you a whole slew of new ideas.

This book has great ideas and opens up possibilities of using things I'd never thought of using before. It shows how to make mixed media items with items "just lying around the house". Check out the "Get Your Grunge On" bracelet. This book will not be getting dusty.

Margot never fails to step into a new point of view and give the reader an unexpected lesson in creating beautiful jewelry. Her ability to boil down her creative vision into easy to understand lessons continues to help the reader expand their ability and exercies their creative muscle. There is something for everyone in this book. It's always entertaining to just read Margot's books, but it is even more fun to actually take her techniques and make wonderful pieces to enjoy or share. Keep the titles coming. Margot Potter is truly one of a kind.

This book has some great ideas for altered art jewelry. It has some neat ideas for stuff you just might have laying around, or might find in odd places. If you like to make jewelry this is a great book for some new ideas.

I am a very crafty person and have experimented in what I thought was all possible things artsy and crafty. When I got this book I was at first impressed with the great colorful cover. When I opened it I was even more impressed there were quite a few techniques I had never even seen or tried. I would have never thought to emboss glass with embossing powder and a heat gun but it has opened up a whole new possibility for my pendants. I could not wait to get in the studio and create after reading this little crafty gem! I am definately going to check out the other books by Margot Potter for more artsy inspiration!

This is Margot Potter's best book, so far. Even though she was insightful enough to include a section on basic jewelry making techniques, these projects go far beyond jewelry making 101. Using both her expertise and amazing eye for brilliant,yet,whimsical style, Margot has opened up mediums both new and familiar to ignite the artist in us all. She once again shows her knack for making inspirational techniques accessible to anyone through her fun and easy-going perspective on art,and life in general. New products like UTEE and grunge board, coupled with old favorites like polymer clay, decoupage medium, and even old-school shrinky dinks are brought together to create awesome new looks, both vintage and modern, sometimes at the same time! My work bench will be the same again! This is the best book in my craft library - until her next one! Thanks Margot!

I've been collecting a lot of doodads, items found at antiques, thrift stores, yard sales. I was hoping this book would give me ideas on how to incorporate things into jewelry but it didn't. This is really more of a crafting techniques book using lots of Ranger products(polymer clay, paper clay, memory glass slides and frames, embossing, etching and using alcohol inks,soldering, plastic shrinky dink how to's, rubber stamping, decoupage, making your own molds using a melting pot, then creating your own charms from the mold,using candy tins to make a pendant, small wood shapes to decoupage or use a wook burning tool to embellish and washers from your garage or local hardware store. I will keep the book to experiment using a few of the products that I've wanted to try only a few. I would never wear a shrinky dink charm bracelet but may try it out with/for my 5 year old grandaughter as a fun craft project.

This was a Christmas present, less beautiful than I had hoped but, according to the recipient, very useful.