Rustic Wrappings: Exploring Patina in Wire, Metal, and Glass Jewelry

by Kerry Bogert

Explore a rustic approach to making beautiful jewelry with exciting surface effects. Rustic Wrappings is packed with over 24 wire and art bead jewelry projects and reveals the surprisingly artistic effects of applying items such as salt, vinegar, sawdust, or potato chips, to your copper, silver, brass and steel wire projects--high-end effects with low-tech techniques. Achieving these innovative effects using household products will not only inspire jewelry makers but mixed-media artists as well.

Advance your technique skills when you learn how to use patinas to add rustic, weathered effects, create unique and natural-looking color combinations, and use metal wire to embroider designs on metal jewelry pieces. Beginners will benefit from detailed technique instruction, while skilled designers will enjoy the introduction to more advanced techniques.

With tons of information on customizing effects for unique metal finishes, Rustic Wrappings will teach you to re-imagine your wirework jewelry projects and create fresh designs that showcase your new skill sets.

Genres: Crafts, Jewellery, Jewellery Making, Art

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2012

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only things that I found especially valuable in this book were a few of the more inventive patinas. Other than that, only absolute beginners will find this book especially interesting. Even then, this isn't really a book that I would recommend to someone interested in diving into smithing jewelry. It's best to take a more traditional and fastidious approach to jewelry making, and then experiment with the rustic look after you know what you're doing, otherwise, it's easy to get into the habit of churning out work that is merely sloppy and giving it the label of 'rustic.' Also, I think that it's a shame that this book encourages you to buy such expensive tools and then only shows you how to do one or two things with them. A much better book is The Complete Book of Jewelry Making by Carles Codina, which is incredibly thorough and shows how to make full use of each of your tools.

Note: I'm certainly not saying that this book is bad, just that there are better choices out there.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of Rustic Wrappings from Interweave on my doorstep. Not only is the jewelry pretty but there are lots and lots of tutorials and ideas for creating items that are applicable for my own jewelry. For example, the pendant on the cover is a metal disc. She punched holes into the wire and pulled a thin craft wire through the holes to make a picture of a bird. I love that! This is a great use for our Soft Flex Craft Wire in some of the finer gauges. That is just one of many smart ideas included in this book.

From the front cover, "exploring patina in wire, metal, and glass jewelry."

In this book, you'll find:

25 Projects
Clever Techniques
Step-by-Step instructions
Guide to metal finishes

[Shai Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. It's great for jewelry designers of all levels as it does cover all the basics. And has wonderful recipes for patina with ingredients that most folks have already.

[Ligaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are certainly rustic looking projects so if you like the more precise, modern style, go elsewhere. But this book is worth a look, as the author may change your mind. A short introduction to types of metal (except nickel, why?) and to tools you may need. The brief section on Basic Techniques is fairly clear, although I thought having all the photos towards the spine of the book, instead of dropped next to the appropriate step-by-step, was not as easy on the reader as could have been. This book is a stretch for me stylistically, I typically work with silver or silver tone wires, and the author mixes copper, steel, and brass and uses patinas liberally. The beads used for the projects are beautiful. Many of the pieces are asymmetrical. She might have tempted me to try to mix things up!

[Maike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous designs and a great peek at how they were created.

[Kelly (Maybedog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a five if I liked more of the projects.

This really includes everything from how to work with metal and wire, to techniques like patina and rusting, to embroidering with wire, even making your own findings! The instructions are very good and accompanied by excellent photos. Most of the projects aren't particularly appealing to me but I found a lot of inspiration in them. I like the idea of the key and keyhole bracelet and the braided bracelet. Projects I really liked included Lazy Daisy necklace which had among other things, dangling glass pendants with typewritten text in them, and the mismatched earrings. (For many years, a couple of decades at least, I wore mismatched earrings. I only stopped because I got a job which didn't allow them and I never went back.)

I definitely think this is a great book for someone new to metal jewelry making, especially someone who likes coils in their jewelry (yes,there were A LOT of them). I plan to get a copy.

[Lori Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Kerry's style in "Totally Twisted", and proudly own some of her work. While I miss her iconic color style in "Rustic Wrappings", there are some serious stunner in this book.