Looking For a Good Book

I’ve often been attracted by hand-made jewelry, probably a result of my older brother having designed some rings back in the 1960’s/1970’s, and thought I might make a decent jewelry designer myself.  When I saw this book, combining home-made jewelry with Steampunk stylings, I knew I had to check this out.

There are some very nice designs within and I do hope I can convince some of my jewelry-making-artisan friends to make some of this for me.  I’m not much of a jewelry wearer any more, but some of these rings and brooches and stick-pins are so creative and unique, I can see myself wearing them on special occasions.

Aside from some really nice designs, I think that the best part of this book is the manual aspect, detailing the tools and materials needed and the “how to” work with the tools.  Although I am simplifying this I felt that, I … someone with passable knowledge of working with hand tools … could actually make any of the pieces in this book if I was willing to try.  This aspect…this ability to make the reader feel confident that this is all achievable is important in a book like this.

I can’t say that I’ve ever looked at a jewelry-making book before, and I see now that Marthe Le Van has written a number of jewelry-making books.  This provides me with more confidence that if I follow her advice, I’ll come out with something that I could proudly wear.

My only ‘complaint’ would be that calling these designs “steampunk” was sometimes ‘iffy.’  There is definitely something steampunk-ish about many of the designs, but as interesting and nice as designs such as “Xylophone Pendant” or “Pillar Necklace & Earrings” are, they aren’t really ‘steampunk.’

Looking for a good book?  Perhaps a small niche market, but Nuts & Bolts will appeal to anyone with an interest and rudimentary skills in jewelry making and steampunk designs.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Nuts & Bolts: Industrial Jewelry in the Steampunk Style

author: Marthe Le Van

publisher: Dover Publications

ASIN: B00QUH4IIM

Kindle Edition, 128 pages