Beading for the First Time (Beadwork Books)

Rating:
Summary: A good starter book
Review: Ann Benson has written several bead books: Beadweaving, Beadwear, Beadwork Basics, and Two-hour Beaded Projects. Beading for the First Time contains the best of these four books, combining techniques into almost thirty projects. You will learn to bead using glue, wire, headpins, needles and thread, elastic, and many other materials to show off your beads and design skills.

At the end of the book in her artists' gallery, Ann shows the work of Jackie Hirsch, Christiana Lapatina Johnson, Sharon Bateman, Kathy Rice and Ginger Sizemore. This book is an excellent starter book, but even an advanced beader can learn a few new tricks from it.

Rating:
Summary: terribly out of order instructions, lack of technique
Review: I am a beading beginner who has done some simple stringing on my own and wishes to find books to show me some fun projects with which I can learn some pattern stitches and most importantly, techniques for working with findings and finishing strings in a clean & professional manner. I had hoped the Ann Benson books would help but I find she is a second rate author and although she may be able to teach in person, these books are terrible for a beginner: they contain patterns but do not teach, instructions for projects are out of order, materials required are not sufficiently explained, techniques are not explained. They claim to be written for beginners {in both titles, for crying out loud} but are instead incredibly frustrating as you need to look elsewhere for HOW to do the things you will be asked to do. How do you "create a loop in the headpin using round nosed pliers"? How do you "close crimp neither too flatly nor loosely with needle nosed pliers"?

In addition, I'm really annoyed with the poor quality of work shown in the book. Frankly the project photos reveal cheesy taste; lots of thread showing and not {in my estimation} very wearable or attractive end results, little of the jewelry is aesthetically pleasing being clunky, chunky stuff that I don't want to learn to make. Exceptions being a fringy pair of earrings and a fringed bag, the pattern for both can be gotten everywhere.

I'm really disappointed, I've purchased and returned "Beadwork Basics" and "Beading for the First Time" immediately. I have requested other "beginner" style beading books and will post reviews of all that I find.

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This book is amazing. The detail the author go to makes beading for the first time really fun and successful. It is a definate must buy for a first time beader.

Rating:
Summary: A beginners must
Review: This was one of the first books I bought when taking up a new hobbie, I hightly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Nice assortment of beading projects
Review: What I really notice about this book is its wide assortment of large and nicely photographed projects, from simple to complex, easy to difficult, from earrings to bookmarks. The projects are also pretty and elegant in my opinion, and the workmanship looks professional.

There are a few projects a beginner could do without much difficulty, such as gluing beads to a wooden form, or stringing beads on an elastic cord for making bracelets. Many other projects would be difficult for a beginner to follow without prior experience. For those with some background knowledge and experience, I think the instructions and the colored diagrams showing threading techniques are clear and easy to follow.

The more advanced projects, among others, include weaving beads on a loom to make a bookmark, threading beads into a beautiful celtic knot design for making a necklace and squared-needle weaving to make a pretty beaded pouch that can also be hung from a necklace.

As one reviewer complained, there are a few holes in the instructions, with the assumption you already know how to do basic techniques such as "using round-nosed pliers, form a loop in end of head pin". For this reason, this is not truly a book for beginners. For a person who knows the basics, this book has lots of ideas and projects from which to choose. Since it is difficult to follow instructions in any book for detailed work such as this, I recommend taking a class first and then buying this book for building skills and getting inspiration.

Rating:
Summary: Nice assortment of beading projects
Review: What I really notice about this book is its wide assortment of large and nicely photographed projects, from simple to complex, easy to difficult, from earrings to bookmarks. The projects are also pretty and elegant in my opinion, and the workmanship looks professional.

There are a few projects a beginner could do without much difficulty, such as gluing beads to a wooden form, or stringing beads on an elastic cord for making bracelets. Many other projects would be difficult for a beginner to follow without prior experience. For those with some background knowledge and experience, I think the instructions and the colored diagrams showing threading techniques are clear and easy to follow.

The more advanced projects, among others, include weaving beads on a loom to make a bookmark, threading beads into a beautiful celtic knot design for making a necklace and squared-needle weaving to make a pretty beaded pouch that can also be hung from a necklace.

As one reviewer complained, there are a few holes in the instructions, with the assumption you already know how to do basic techniques such as "using round-nosed pliers, form a loop in end of head pin". For this reason, this is not truly a book for beginners. For a person who knows the basics, this book has lots of ideas and projects from which to choose. Since it is difficult to follow instructions in any book for detailed work such as this, I recommend taking a class first and then buying this book for building skills and getting inspiration.