Here is a book that I can whole-heartedly recommend to beginners who want to make great looking jewelry, and want it FAST!
Chain Style
by Jane Dickerson
There’s nothing like adding chain to your design, or even designing an entire piece around chain, to make the design work up quickly. Chain is an excellent material for both beginners and those with advanced skills, because the complexity of your projects is only limited by experience and imagination.
The techniques and materials section is minimal but sufficient.  Largely this is because the projects are all so accessible.  There are 50 designs to inspire you, many …read more

Technique Tuesday!
I made this multi-strand necklace for my friend Sherry. She wanted something that celebrated the fourth day of Creation, and she wanted me to make it for her! I was thrilled and flattered. Sherry is just about the perfect person to work for on a commission such as this: She knows the general style, weight, colors, and images that she wants, but she never crosses the line into micro-managing.
Her necklace became a three-strand affair, but still ended up relatively lightweight. I used a bead embroidered centerpiece, chosing a lovely fused glass bead made by my friend Jeanne Kent (New …read more

Art Bead Scene:
The October Art Bead Scene Challenge gets folksy.

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva
Cindy shows off her new buckle charm necklace but what should she name it?
Earthenwood Studo Chronicles
Melanie brightens up her beading palette with some spring colors for her second Art Beads crystal blog post.
Jean Campbell
Jean shares her delight with Cynthia Thornton’s new book, “Enchanted Adornments”
Katie’s Beading Blog
Katie’s mixing polymer clay with beads again – check out this new design!
Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
Jean is swooning over the newest Crystallized Innovations from …read more

About.com Jewelry Making:
Tammy offers you two simple ways to become part of the on-line jewelry making community.

Art Bead Scene
Take a tour with the Art Bead Scene. We’ve got places to go and beads to see!
Barbe Saint John – New Jewelry from Forgotten Artifacts
Simply Gemstones book review
Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi creates a new necklace with heart shaped resin pendants she made.
Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva
Take a walk on the dark side and see what kind of jewelry Cindy comes up with.
Earthenwod Studio Chronicles
Melanie begins her celebration of a …read more

Belle Armoire Jewelry is published by Stampington as a quarterly magazine. The deadline for submissions for the next issue is October 15, 2009.
From the website: If you’d like to share your inspiration and detailed how-to instruction for creating beautiful jewelry with readers, we want to hear from you. Belle Armoire Jewelry covers a broad range of mediums, from art clay to polymer clay to found object to fiber to wire to beads and much, much more. Whether you are a creator of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, brooches, pendants, rings or other jewelry, we welcome you to submit your artwork for …read more

Question of the Month: What’s the best thing you’ve made so far this summer?
A beautiful bead and chain necklace, made by Breanna Hite!
Flickr photo album
Breanna writes:
This necklace always makes me feel like a princess when I wear it.

Question of the Month: What’s the best thing you’ve made so far this summer?
A beautiful mixed media necklace, made by Loren Yaskin!
Jadyn’s Jewels
Loren writes:
My favorite summertime creation is my “Fleur de Neige” (or snow flower) necklace.

Technique Tuesday!
Originally, I had planned to make this a much more complicated necklace, but as I played with a few ideas, I finally realized that I really didn’t want to distract too much attention from the central medallion. So I settled on three knotted cords and a strand of ribbon yarn. I chose colors that would not only look good with the fish, but would also look vaguely like running water.
Step by step instructions

Make Art Monday!
Several months ago, we devoted ourselves to polymer clay artists.  Well, I didn’t quite get enough!  I started thinking about all the wonderful jewelry that we saw, but I realized that I just don’t want to personally work with clay, at least not enough to get really good at it!
So, turning our attention back to polymer clay for a brief moment, I want to share a necklace with you that I made using one of my friend Amy E Fraser’s polymer clay medallions for the centerpiece.   This piece commemorates one of my favorite summer pass-times…fishing!
Tomorrow, I’ll show …read more

Technique Tuesday!
In the first part of our tutorial, we looked at how to create the CopprClay focal discs. Now we’re going to look at one possible way to use them in a finished necklace.

I decided to mix my metals up a bit: I really like the rustic look of bronze, copper, and antique brass together, but you can stick with all one metal if you prefer. Here’s what I used:
Materials & Tools:
5 focal copper discs
5 vintage rhinestone buttons in bronze setting
10″ of raw brass chain
18 raw brass jump rings, 7.25 mm
9 copper jump rings, 6 mm
10 mm copper drop
5″ copper …read more