Aimee Carpenter's book, Endless Sparkle is a collection of component style jewelry made using right angle weaving and cross weaving techniques.
If you are a fan of faceted crystal beads, cross weaving and jewelry with a lot of flash and sparkle, you may really like this book.
The short introduction explains the tools and techniques you'll be using with nice diagrams and explanations.
Then it gets into the components, the beading styles in this book are done using beaded components that are made of crystals and seed beads. Mostly right angle weave techniques and different sizes and shapes of beads to create the individual components. The components are mostly simple to make, and the progress logically so the skills you learn from doing one apply to the next one.
The next section is finished jewelry. How to connect and use components to make necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets, and even a headband. The techniques used in this chapter apply to several of the components, so you can change things around.
The components are clever and pretty. The jewelry can be very Bohemian looking using rich red and orange tones, or more casual using fun colors, or very elegant using jewel tones with metallic finished seed beads. The projects are very nearly instant gratification, being very quick to make. Using the right colors, a lot of the things in this book are great for prom or formal jewelry.
The projects, being built out of simple to weave components also make this a good book for a more advanced beginner. You do need to be able to follow bead diagrams, if you're a complete beginner, I recommend reading through the instructions completely before you start beading. Cross weaving is very easy and fast when you get the hang of it, but sometimes following instructions and diagrams to learn it can be a bit confusing.
My favorite component in this book is the crystal and seed bead butterfly. My favorite project is the Elegant Choker which reminds me of jewelry used in costumes for some of my favorite period type movies.
You can get this book directly from the publisher, Kalmbach Books, or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.


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