Review: The Complete Photo Guide to Beading

l was recently given a copy of the crafting book "The Complete Photo Guide to Beading" by Robin Atkins to review, and I must say I am thoroughly impressed with the depth, quality, and clarity of this publication.  As a pretty well versed crafter, I have dabbled in beading projects in the past (heck, I even took a beading class when I lived in Nelson) and this book has excelled far past my expectations and is truly an invaluable resource for all your beading projects, regardless of your expertise level. Take a peek:

The book itself is quite lovely to flip through. As the title indicates, it is full to the brim of beautiful full page images of beading tips, techniques, and projects and is an ascetically pleasing dream for any beaders out there. This guide does an awesome job of introducing you to the fabulous world of beading and continues on to clearly expand upon stinging, stitching, crocheting, knitting, weaving, and embroidering with beads.  If there's a beading teqhnique you'd like you learn (or master), this book is certainly a perfect go-to reference and is sure to help you figure out pretty much anything bead related. 

I love how each technique is introduced with a bit of history (perfect for any academic geeks like me), then clearly and thoroughly explained with step by step procedures and lots of helpful images. It certainly provides a well rounded approach for teaching new skills that would appeal to all sorts of crafters with different learning strengths. There are even projects designed to teach the beading techniques and make beading easier and more fun!     Hooray! I also really like how it explains even the basic methods like hand knotting and gives you great tips to help you master it! As a mostly self taught and internet tutorial knotter, I really liked learning more about how to tie the perfect tight knots in a necklace and found the instructions incredibly clear and the images extra helpful:

Even though not all of the projects were my cup of tea (there wasn't a single smiling bacteriophage to be found), I can certainly see using this guide as an inspiration point for all sorts of fun bead projects and loved seeing all the different beading techniques in action! Here are a few of methods I can't wait to execute in my own way:

OoOo! I love how this book has inspired me to take a trip to my favourite bead store and add a little extra bead fun to my crafting and I'm excited to see the results of my efforts! I actually ended up loving this guide so much that I picked up "The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet" this weekend and am stoked for even more crafty learning! Oh my!