Second Review on Amazon!

I've just gone to Amazon.co.uk and what do I see but an excellent second review of "Glass Bead Jewelry Projects"! Wow, thank you so much, Lynsey! Here it goes:

"5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and inspirational Book, 27 Jan 2011
By
lynsey adams "Kanga" (England) - See all my reviews(VINE VOICE)
This review is from: Glass Bead Jewelry Projects (Paperback)

This is a beautiful book, and very good value, sold at a huge discount from the cover price. It is one of the few lampwork books published in the UK, so that you can be reasonably sure that the materials recommended are readily available.

What I particularly liked was that the author is not only giving us detailed instructions on some stunning projects, but from her own experience tells of the expensive mistakes and pitfalls to be avoided.

As another reviewer says, it isn't difficult to find a lampworking book that tells you the basics of making a bead, the tools needed and how to set them up. Where this book really scores, is that the author goes on to illustrate the book with her own extremely beautiful beads, with instruction on not only how to make them, with detailed step by step illustrations, but follows this with inspiring ideas on how to make each particular type of bead into a piece of stunning jewellery.

She begins by telling us exactly what type and quantity of glass to use for the bead: 'if you want your bead to look exactly like mine you will need:', and follows this with the same information on the materials and tools needed to make the jewellery. Experienced beadmakers might not need this, but it is very helpful to a near beginner.

Projects are graded into 'beginners', intermediate' and 'advanced' level, and although I think that it would certainly take a good deal practice to obtain the results in the book, even to a near beginner like myself they do actually look achieveable. There are a few exceptions to this towards the end of the book which look much more difficult, but they are in the 'advanced' section and could be worked toward. However, even the beads in the 'beginners' section are stunningly beautiful and not just padding for the book.

This is also a great book for furthering your own ideas and designs if you are past the stage of needing step by step instructions. Change a colour here, transfer a technique there, and you can use the beads shown in the book as templates for you own unique beads and jewellery.

Many other lampworking books show beads made by other artists - beautiful to look at, but often one is left frustrated and wondering, 'how did they DO that?'. This book shows the author's work exclusively, and I don't think it suffers from doing that, as the work is of a very high standard. It reads like a series of excellent and detailed personal tutorials, written in an accessible and friendly way.

One more thing that I particularly liked - and this is only a very personal opinion - there is not a sign of any glass animal beads, distorted faces, vessels, cottages, gnomes, cartoon characters, baskets of flowers, or any other type of hideously naff, (albeit technically skilful), creations so beloved by authors of certain other lampworking books.

If you want ideas and inspiration, with detailed instructions for making beautiful beads and jewellery, with this book you just can't lose. "