Nealay Patel's book, Jewelry for the New Romantic uses cable style beading wire as a design component instead of just as a stringing material. He takes it out from inside of beads to wrap, coil and loop as part of his designs.

The beading wire referred to in the title are plastic coated cables made of fine filaments. One of the most popular brands is Soft Flex® which comes in a lot of colors and several weights or thicknesses. It's a very strong stringing medium that's finished with crimp beads. It shapes easily without the bends, breaks and scratches that pure metal wires are prone to. The Extreme Soft Flex is used for a lot of designs in this book.

He uses that flexibility and adaptability of beading wire in lots of great projects that are suitable for both bead weavers and bead stringers. This is one of the best fusion techniques I've seen between the two sorts of beaders.

The finished jewelry is lightweight and airy looking, very lacy, romantic designs that are also very clean looking are the emphasis of this book. Also most of the designs are sets, including a necklace, bracelet and earrings.

My favorite designs include:
Gallery- Embellished and layered ladders create rectangle frames for free form beaded loops of beading wire- combines seed bead weaving techniques with stringing techniques to make a very modern looking jewelry set.
Cosmic- The shapes of Cosmic look like they would be cast and rhinestone set, but they are actually stitched cube beads with embellishment that are spaced on chains of wrapped, airy, beaded beading wire.
Golden Nights- Incredibly intricate looking, dressy set made with large pearls, gold beading wire and crystals and beads that really bring out the gold, lush effect.

Seed beaders will love his take on Dutch Spirals. People just getting ready to take the plunge into bead weaving will enjoy the combination of small bead woven sections spaced on beading wire.

The directions are clear, with fantastic diagrams, the pieces are exciting and interesting. Very modern looking, but also inspired by classic pieces. The materials for the pieces are easy to find, and affordable. The effects are stunning and inspiring. This really does take beading wire to the next level.

You can get this book directly from the publisher Kalmbach Publishing Co., your local bead store, or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.



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Kalmbach Publishing Co. provided this review copy of Create Colorful Aluminum Jewelry to me free of charge.
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