The art of soldering—permanently joining metal components with a torch and solder—can open up a new world of creative possibilities for jewelry makers. In Hot Connections Jewelry, award-winning jewelry designer Jennifer Chin guides you through every step, from choosing a torch to basic techniques like sawing, filing, and riveting, as well as more advanced techniques like creating surface textures, setting stones, and using inlay. With 23 in-depth lessons and 15 stunning projects, as well as inspiring examples from contributing artists, Hot Connections Jewelry is your essential guide to unleashing your creativity and confidence in jewelry making.

Hot and Cold Jewelry Connections is the perfect tool for encouraging jewelry makers to branch out and develop new skills. Kieu Pham Gray’s unique approach to metalwork begins with a design concept, then shows how to execute it using either cold connections (riveting, tabbing, wire wrapping), or hot connections (easy soldering with a small butane torch), teaching essential techniques of both along the way. These hot and cold options help jewelry makers understand how to evaluate and choose the right technique for their jewelry pieces based on their desired end result.

Many crafters are interested in, but intimidated by soldering. Popular jewellery designer and instructor Scott David Plumlee shows readers how to use easy at-home soldering techniques to create more than 30 intricate-looking earrings, bracelets and necklaces. Scott David Plumlee, author of Handcrafting Chains and Bead Jewelry, teaches jewellery makers how to combine simplified soldering (using Argentium silver paste and a small hand-held butane torch) and wire-wrapping techniques to create a range of seemingly complex but doable chain and bead designs. The author's unique approach to combining beading, chain-making, wirework and soldering will appeal to a broad range of crafters.

Minimal Metal Jewelry is a collection of beautifully wearable pieces made using minimal materials, just two gauges of wire and two sizes of jump rings. With just a few supplies and tools, jewelry makers will create 20+ earrings, bracelets, pendants, rings, and more. This project-focused book encourages jewelry makers to explore different metalwork and wirework techniques. Gray includes a thorough discussion of torchwork and soldering techniques, along with hundreds of clear, step-by-step photos so the enthusiastic beginner will find success. Kieu Pham Gray has been creating jewelry for more than 15 years, and it truly shows in her approachable designs. She includes tips and tricks for technique success, learned through her many years of teaching experience. Plus, each project includes an alternate version made with a different metal, making this book a great value.

A bench reference for all jewellers. Discusses various ways of joining parts, and contains all you need to know about practical joining.

“A dynamic group biography studded with design history and high-society dash . . . [This] elegantly wrought narrative bears the Cartier hallmark.”—The Economist The “astounding” (André Leon Talley) story of the family behind the Cartier empire and the three brothers who turned their grandfather’s humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon—as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives “Ms. Cartier Brickell has done her grandfather proud.”—The Wall Street Journal The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis, the visionary designer who created the first men’s wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands off the controls of his flying machine; Pierre, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world’s best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti Frutti jewelry. Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the brothers, has traveled the world researching her family’s history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm’s most iconic jewelry—the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces—and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. Published in the two-hundredth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty’s founder, Louis-François Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.

Far from its original utilitarian use—to create armor—the chain-mail technique has been adapted over time to create beautiful, unique jewelry. In Chain and Bead Jewelry Creative Connections, chain-mail expert Scott David Plumlee shows jewelry makers, beaders, and crafters at all skill levels how to incorporate beads into a variety of chain-mail weaves to create showstopping pieces. First, Plumlee walks readers through basic skills and provides detailed information on traditional chain designs. He then presents more than 20 wire-wrapping and bead-setting techniques that incorporate beads seamlessly into a variety of designs, from the creative “Chaos” wire-wrapped bead to the sinuous Snake. With step-by-step instructions for assembling age-old chain patterns—from simple to complex—and gorgeous designs that can be executed using only simple hand tools, Chain and Bead Jewelry Creative Connections is sure to inspire jewelry artisans at all levels to expand the creative possibilities of their work.