Resin Jewelry Book

"I immediately took the book to the fireplace and curled up with my pooch Daisy."

(Photo courtesy of my husband, Mike)

 

 

 

I opened up my mailbox to find an explosion of color.  This is both literally and figuratively speaking.  The Blue Brick’s,  Shireen X. Nadir just released her book Resin Jewelry (2^nd edition).  It is now in hard copy or can be instantly downloaded http://thebluebrick.ca/resin-jewelry-the-book/  

 This luxurious jewelry instructional book is loaded with vibrant photos.  I immediately took the book to the fireplace and curled up with my pooch Daisy.  This book kept me captivated much the same way  best friends connect  over a warm cup of tea on a cool fall day.  Shireen has many talents and she exhibits those talents in her book through 16 step-by-step projects.  In addition to the guided projects, she offers tips on successful bezel creation, how to preserve flowers and foliage, resin mixing and pouring and how to circumvent challenges while working with resin.  First and foremost, she is an effective teacher, artist and communicator.  Her instructions are clear and concise from start to finish.  Each project has an abundance of photos and is written in detailed tutorial form.   It is an added bonus that Shireen is a professional photographer and captures action and still shots to demonstrate her lessons.  Her book is like ROY G BIV on steroids!!  The jewel-tone color photography seems to fly off the pages.  

  

Readers will be captivated by the projects and the work shared in the book. It is written for both the beginner and experienced resin jewelry artist.  What really made my heart sing was the thorough instruction on how to use the vacuum extractor to yield beautiful bubble free resin jewelry.  She does a superb job with describing and photographing the vacuum’s components and the entire bubble-free resin process from start to finish.  She even includes the name and website of the vacuum extractor she uses. 

For those that have tried the resin spheres, you may have found that it is nearly impossible to get those air bubbles out of the mold, or  trying to figure out the best pour method for achieving that oh so groovy three dimensional foliage sphere.  Well, this book is a great resource for that step by step process and I about hit myself in the forehead when I saw the simple tool used to fill the sphere.  We aren’t just talking spheres of hearty status flower;  we are talking delicate heads of fluffy dandelions encased in a sphere of resin!!  When I learned that Shireen was going to be covering making a dandelion sphere I was thrilled, as I haven’t been able to find a good source of instruction for doing this process until now. 

Of the many useful tools and tips covered in the book, Resin Jewelry, my favorite is the description of the best types of resins on the market.  Shireen has done her research with these resins and shares what she has learned about them to her readers.  There were a couple of resin products I had considered trying, but was a little overwhelmed with so many products on the market.  Before reading this book, I simply didn’t know which ones to use.  Now I do.  

This book has changed how I think about resin.  It has inspired me to want to make resin spheres, use texture molds and try my hand at cubes.   It gives me the information I need to dehydrate my own flat and dimensional foliage in my own home and makes the resin jewelry making process seem less intimidating.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to explore resin jewelry or to augment their current jewelry style, by adding resin components.  This book is a work of art.