Bead Metamorphosis: Exquisite Jewelry from Custom Components

I truly enjoyed this book. It is beautifully illustrated with clear diagrams and excellent photographs. The instructions for projects are clear and concise, very easy to follow for both someone fairly new to beading(advanced beginner) as well as the more experienced beader. It begins with a clear description of the tools and beads that you will be working with, and includes some handy tips and artist preferences that I considered to be very insightful. Moving on to the projects, this book focuses on beading on a component level. Each group of projects begins with a basic component, and goes on to provide embellishments and different ways to create finished pieces with that component. There are handy little tips scattered through the pages that are quite helpful with successfully completing the projects in the book. The author provides color names and brands for the beads used in her designs, as well as reliable sources for the supplies she uses in a chapter in the back of the book. That said, there is plenty of encouragement to use your own ideas and inspirations along with the techniques that Ms. Kan has demonstrated to make jewelry that is uniquely your own. The chapter on Color & Inspiration is perhaps my favorite chapter in the book. It is a great asset to anyone who, like me, will happily use the ideas in this book as a springboard to create and design from. I had not previously purchased a copy of Lisa Kan’s other book, Bead Romantique, but this book inspired me to locate and purchase it as well (a little hard to find, but YAY!! Amazon to the rescue!). I do think that you would need at least some beading skill to complete the projects in this book. It’s a great inspiration for a beginner, but I would want to be familiar with basics like peyote stitch and RAW before tackling these projects. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone with moderate experience beading. I am very happy to have Bead Metamorphosis in my beading library.

I may not be the most advanced beader, but I was pleasantly surprised how easy a lot of the designs were. I'm a fast learner so that may not be the case with anyone else. I would give the book 5 stars, but there is one thing I was like ugh was the color scheme of some of the designs It feels cheap/Barbie-ish which bothered me but, its no big deal because the beauty of any project is you can change the color of the beads.

This book is full of gorgeous designs with plenty of photos and detailed instructions (both written and visual). But there are also typos in these instructions. Many of the patterns use a large variety of beads in different colours and sizes, and consist of many unique rounds/steps of beading to complete individual designs. Hence the typos make completing these designs rather frustrating. Also sometimes I wasn't sure whether I was beading the front of a design or the back. I have only attempted a couple of the designs and they were the more complicated ones so hopefully the other projects won't induce the same levels of frustration.Despite these shortcomings I would still recommend this book but only to experienced beaders.

I am fast becoming a fan of Lisa Kan. Here beautiful designs have a heavy historical influence that I love. This book, in particular, encourages bead artists to think of how to combine different components into unique jewelry. I haven't made any of the designs from this book yet, but I'm sure that the very well written instructions will be easy to follow. Beautiful designs, and an interesting way to think about beaded jewelry construction. Well don, Lisa Kan.

I wish I had the time to make every single project in this book! My only complaint is how many different types of beads some of these projects take, but there's really no preventing that in order to get these beautiful pieces of art. If the area where I live had more stores to buy the beads I need, I'd be broke! Very good book! A must have for any avid beader.

Great thinking designs but some major editing issues, on Encanto necklace for instance. I've made most of the projects. A bit too wordy for my taste, the splitting of rows across more than one instruction is a no-no. Diagrams good.

I haven't used the book, but I have read thru it and believe I can follow the directions, hints and suggestions are note worthy for the beginner beader as well as intermediate beaders who may not be aware there are easier ways to looking at beading.

Love it!

Beautiful book, some interesting designs, nice photos etc, however extremely frustrating to find some of the components very hard to find if at all, an internet search brings up the designers own etsy shop, i went through all the suppliers in the back to try and source the item i wanted with no luck, so a little disapointed i cannot make the project i wanted. Some of these components are not readily available in the uk either, so all in all feel a little conned.

it is not what i thought it was but it is worth the money

Excellent book. Great ideas to how to use the new beads. Just need to find the time to sit and make everything in book. Good for beginners and skilled beaders. Fantastic book easy instructions

Delighted! Many thanks.

A book I will refer to time and again.