35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learned a lot from this book, May 11, 2007
This review is from: Pagan Prayer Beads: Magic and Meditation with Pagan Rosaries (Paperback)
I'm an experienced beader, but have never ventured into making rosaries. This book is great for folks who know their way around beads, and probably for beginners too. The authors give practical advice and suggestions, as well as creative ideas for personalizing your rosary. They give detailed information about what materials to use (beads, stringing materials, crimps, etc) and good descriptions of how to make the different designs. My only minor complaint is I wish the pics had been in color (such beautiful designs, and I'm sure they would have looked even better in color), and some pictures of the actual process of making them would have been nice, especially for beginners. But overall a great book that I would definitely recommend!
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42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I expected. What do I do with the results of my work?, August 24, 2008
This review is from: Pagan Prayer Beads: Magic and Meditation with Pagan Rosaries (Paperback)
I bought this book in hopes of learning, not just how to create a meaningful and useful personal prayer tool, but also the variety of ways I can use one of these beautiful creations.
What I got, instead, was a book about beading. That's about it. The bulk of the book focuses on how to design and construct a pretty necklace or bracelet or other jewelry, interspersed with personal stories of how others have gone about the asthetic process. There seemed to be no mention or thought about what purpose the final product would serve. Some of the book does touch on various corrospondances that can be easily gained from other books (colors and their associations, gemstones and their uses etc) and there are many examples of how certain beads or charms can be used as symbols, but there is only one chapter, a footnote really of less than 20 pages (out of the 180 pages), on various things to do with the pretty necklace once you've made it.
While the book was written, apearently, by members of the pagan community and contains recipes and tips for constructing Wiccan, Druidic, Goddess and Fairy jewelry, there is hardly a mention of how to use these creations for the "prayer and meditation" mentioned in the title once you've tied and hidden your final knot.
I ask, how can I design a set of prayer beads if I don't have a plan for what I'm going to do with it when I'm done? What purpose is my rosary going to serve etc? This question is left without much guidance or suggestions by the authors... I was very dissapointed considering what I'd hoped for... I would have liked MUCH greater depth in the possible uses for each of the designs as, to me, the purpose dictates the design and rosaries or prayer beads are much more to me than a pretty string of beads.
But if you need a book about bead/charm corrospondances and need some friendly expert advice on how to make beaded pagan jewelry that could possibly be used for prayer and meditation, this might be the book for you.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and uplifting, October 4, 2007
This review is from: Pagan Prayer Beads: Magic and Meditation with Pagan Rosaries (Paperback)
This book is a fantastic resource for anyone who has ever considered designing his or her own prayer beads but had no idea where to start, how to work with beading wire, or which types of beads correspond to the specific purpose and/or intent. Different styles and techniques are shown (symmetrical/asymmetrical, for example) and explained in enough detail to help you through, but not enough that it becomes a substitute for your own ideas. The tone and language are uplifting and encouraging.
The only thing I'd change about the book if I could would be the images. As beautiful as the images are, it would be so much more helpful to someone with little to no understanding of color correspondences to actually see specific colors in use.
Even without the color images this is now one of my new favorite books - I will definitely be going back to it when I'm ready to start working a bit more with the beading wire.
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