Gorgeous ideas and step by step instructions for making your own rings, bracelets, necklaces and more out of wood.
A beautiful natural collection of designs that you can approach from beginner to advanced jewellery maker,

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A good book for novice to experienced woodworkers looking to expand their skills, not as much for a beginner though. There's a nice variety of projects, with lots of photos to make things easier. Also helpful are tips on sourcing wood for projects, with an eye on reusing and repurposing materials.

#CreatingWoodenJewelrySarahKingFoxChapelPublishing #NetGalley

Great little book to help you build skills! Not everything in here was my taste, but I can see how the techniques can transfer to more complex things that can be adapted to suite personal style. Add this one to your quarantine wishlist!

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC for the purpose of an unbiased review.

Thank you #NetGalley for the review copy of #CreatingWoodenJewelrySarahKingFoxChapelPublishing

This book is for beginners to making jewelry using wood and is from a jewlery-making perspective rather than a wood specialist's. If you have experience making jewelry with other materials this is still a useful book, and some projects even directly address that they're good for those who have made metal jewelry, etc.

The content broken down into chapters by broad category (techniques, tools, etc.) with each specific aspect explained independently and accompanied by a project to implement it, for a total of 24 projects. Each project has a detailed list of supplies needed, information about what kind of wood was selected and why, information about what skills you'll practice, step-by-step written instructions, and photographs for most steps. There are also a handful of interviews throughout that give additional insight to the artistic process. The end has a list of links to suppliers by category, websites with additional useful information, and jewelers who use wood for their projects..

The photos are all absolutely stunning and make this book double as a great coffee-table book to flip through.

A lovely beautifully illustrated book on creating wooden jewelry. With ideas as well as basics such as how to choose the wood. This book has projects to follow that range in ability and will teach you the neccessary knowledge and know how.

This book features some interesting techniques and lovely pictures, but is definitely not aimed at the beginner. You would need some experience of both jewellery-making and woodworking to be able to replicate any of the pieces.

Many of the projects feature large, chunky wearable wood, and although striking and impressive they were not the sort of thing I'd consider wearing. They look big and uncomfortable, designed to be statement pieces which would look great on someone else.

The techniques are explained very well and photographed beautifully, however the long list of tools required for each piece is off-putting and a bit scary. Most people don't have a workshop with a belt sander, lathe, band saw, pillar drill and riveting hammer, but the author does mention that there are community workshops in many towns which would have the equipment and hopefully some friendly faces to get you started.

There is a great chapter on "decorating wood" which does not require lots of tools, and the methods shown are quite simple. I will definitely give some of them a try. Other positives are the use of 'found wood' and easily-obtainable wooden spoons.

I'm giving this 3 stars but perhaps I'm being mean as it's both beautiful and well-organised, and no doubt lots of other readers will love the big, chunky pieces.

This is a beautiful book, by a clearly skilled craftswoman. The cover alone is gorgeous. I love that it says "Wood you can wear!" on the back. Many of these pieces look like you'd find them in a fine museum gift shop.

Not for the absolute beginner, it's rather more like a cookbook you aspire to. Not one you set on the shelf and forget, but one that you'll find yourself using a lot after you put some effort into it. If you develop the skills --and obtain the equipment -- the projects here are gorgeous, warm, and stunning -- well worth the time. Reading it, I felt a little guilty in thinking that I might just rather buy the finished work from a show or Etsy. But that is more the stage of life I'm in now than anything. If I had more time, I would definitely tackle so many of these projects.

That said, I do agree with a previous review that noted the cork-bead necklace as an excellent point for beginners.

I just reviewed Creating Wooden Jewelry by Sarah King. #CreatingWoodenJewelrySarahKingFoxChapelPublishing #NetGalley

Making jewelry from wood? Although we see so many made, but from this book I learned how to choose the materials and for what effects, what tools you need and some tips on the tools itself, and many more tips, tricks, how-to. Even though I might not make one soon, this book shares a good knowledge about jewelry making.

I jumped at the chance to review this book when I saw it up on Netgalley. I am still the sort who would prefer to own this in a print copy but it presented well in digital format.
There is something here for any wood worker, from beginner to more experienced. The projects are both inspiring and beautiful.
This is a book with much more than instructions.
We meet talented designers and learn about their processes and how (and by whom) they were inspired and influenced. We learn about types of wood and what could be considered by~products and where they are sourced. We are introduced to techniques that we are then eager to try ourselves.

The photos are beautiful, the instructions clear. Projects range from practical to outrageous yet wonderful. Wood by itself, wood combined with other materials, wood used in places where other materials have traditionally been used. After perusing this book readers will have a new appreciation for the wood, the products and for the artists.

I suggest you page through the pages and chapters first before settling to find a project to focus on. Some will call you. Others you will wish you would reach out and touch. I did spend some time looking up the artists and their work. This is a dream book as well as an instruction manual.
It makes for a beautiful gift for someone unsure of what lies ahead for them in future work or hobbies and for the jewelry enthusiast or present woodworker. It will give anyone who reads it a new appreciation.

Creating Wooden Jewelry by Sarah King is a tutorial and gallery guide for exploring wood alone and in combination with other materials as a medium for jewelry. Due out 10th Dec 2019 from Fox Chapel, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.

Wood is certainly not a new medium for ornamental jewelry. It's warm, it's easy to work manually and shape, it provides a palette of colors, textures, and densities, it is relatively inexpensive, it combines perfectly with other media, and it's attractive. This is a tutorial book as well as a gallery aimed (mostly) at jewelry artists by other artists.

The 20 project tutorials included in the book are skill-building exercises and provide practice in shaping, choosing materials, connections for assembly, combining other media and objects with wood, and tools and materials. The entire book has clear and complete photography including the step-by-step tutorials. It also includes a solid links/bibliography/resources list as well as a cross referenced index.

This is a solidly written guide for jewelers and crafters who are interested in expanding their repertoire to include wood as a medium in their work. The projects included run the gamut from beginner to advanced and there are takeaways here for a broad range of artists and crafters, not just jewelers.

Five stars. Admittedly something of a niche book, but very well done and accessible. This would make a superlative selection for an artist/designer's home library, or for a maker's space library, guild loaning library, art class/school or the like.

This book will be useful to people with experience in woodworking and looking to spark their creativity. A basis of knowledge will certainly be necessary. Aesthetically, I am of two minds after looking through the author's creations: as sculptures they have a pleasing modern sensibility; as jewelry: they seem huge (disproportionately so) and a bit clunky (beyond whimsical).

I was amazed at how beautiful and quite doable some of these pieces of jewellery made from wood are. With step by step instructions and a little bit of understanding of the use of woodworking tools some very personal and unique pieces can be achieved. There is even a necklace made from the bowl end of wooden spoons which look fabulous, I really found the 3D shaping very beautiful, the ring and bracelets and earrings were very elegant. There is information on laminating, silver inlays, ebonizing and electroforming to enhance the jewellery pieces. Great photos and directions, lovely book
Anyone with a liking for wood, enjoys making jewellery and creating great designs will enjoy this book

This book had very detailed instructions and I enjoyed perusing through the diverse techniques and projects. I liked how many different elements were presented to the reader. And I think is a good book to start if you're like me, curious about wood jewelry but not knowing how to begin. It had very simple explanations with clear images to make the explanations complete. It also has a catalogue of every tool you'll need to create the projects, and the names of each of the people who created them. I really enjoyed the book and I'm thankfull I was given the opportunity to read it.

I absolutely love the idea of wooden jewellery and the book offers several projects that I am dying to try out.

The information on sourcing wood is great, and the step-by-step instructions guide you through the process of preparing the wood, inlaying silver, and finishing the completed object.

Perfect for anyone who would like to get into wooden jewellery making.

I received an advance copy of this book--Creating Wooden Jewelry by Sarah King--from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I've only just joined the service, and I love that they will share digital ARCs on topics relevant to this blog! I've been an advance reviewer on several textbook publishers' lists for several years, but i'm super excited to be able to add some commercial titles as well.

I took a look at this book for my first review because we're starting to use wood more frequently in costume craftwork due to its aesthetic flexibility with respect to laser etched/cut motifs. (Longtime followers will recall wood and acrylic lasercut projects from my digital technologies class two years ago.) These can get incorporated into armor, jewelry, hat decor, and so forth. While i did grow up in a home with a basement wood shop and a woodworker father who was always happy to help me figure out how to make something for a science fair or a physics project, I wouldn't consider myself anything like adept at woodworking.

So, let me begin by saying that if you have absolutely NO experience with woodworking, this book is going to feel intimidating. The author presumes that the reader has a passing familiarity with tools like routers, saws/rasps/files, drills, etc, and that you understand how jewelry goes together. If you don't know your jump rings from your split rings, this book is too advanced for you.

That said, even a novice jeweler and/or woodworker can pick up the threads here and follow along with the project instructions. All of the projects are easily adaptable/customizable too, so you can exercise your own creativity in their execution.

One project in particular stood out as an easy one for getting your feet wet without a huge investment in wood shop equipment: the necklace of carved cork beads using repurposed wine/champagne corks. All you need is a Dremel/drill and an Xacto/scalpel! In fact, it's so simple and straightforward that I wondered why it wasn't placed first in the book. Only when i got to the end did i realize that the author and editor have arranged the book's projects into groups utilizing similar techniques and equipment.

King has some great tips on surface finishing and decoration of wood surfaces--from inlays and leafing to paints and stains, I found a lot of inspiration in those sections. I also appreciated the sporadic profiles on contemporary jewelry artists working in the medium of wood.

In general, I found myself often thinking through how I might easily adapt (and more efficiently actualize) some of the projects in here by using the laser cutter--several of the ones that call for hand-sawing thin ply wood elements could benefit from digitization. I realize that the book is written with a primary audience of jewelers and craftspeople seeking handcraft hobbies and the slower pace of doing the projects by hand, but theatrically speaking, we are always thinking of ways to do things faster.

There's a great section at the end about the tools and equipment you'll need for various projects, but organization-wise this might have been better off at the beginning. I also had a quibble with the section listing off projects by ease or difficulty--I felt like some of the "easy" ones were quite difficult and some of the mid-rage/"hard" ones were not very challenging. Perhaps this is my own particular sensibilities as someone who works with my hands in other crafts/trades, or perhaps we have different understandings of what makes something a challenge.

All in all, I recommend this text as a guidebook for exploring small-scale woodworking/-shaping. The enphasis is on craftsmanship by hand, and it's not effective as a reference text since it's structured around specific projects, but I'm an atypical reader of books of this sort. Those with an interest in jewerymaking--partuclarly on the artisanship level--will appreciate its projects and insights into the medium of wood.

Creating Wooden Jewelry by Sarah King is a great resource for working with wood for jewelry. This goes into detail for how to make amazing wooden items that you'll always enjoy.

This is a very unique and intriguing book on wood jewelry making. I found many of the projects a little chunky and large for my taste but many of them have potential for customizing into smaller pieces. I really enjoyed the sections on unique finishes that can be achieved, I would not say this is a beginner level craft book because some of the custom finishes are a little complex. Overall I still really enjoyed it. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

Beautiful pictures of uniquely crafted pieces. Step by step guides of tools and techniques as well as how to pick out wood, which piece and why. Wonderful craft book!

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.