Creative Clay Jewelry: Extraordinary * Colorful * Fun Designs to Make from Polymer Clay

I found this work to be most helpful. It provides step by step instructions and is great for the beginner. The book is full of designs for use with Polymer Clay and is quite detailed. The photography is great and quite clear. The text is full of helpful hints and tips as to techniques that are easy to follow. I also enjoyed the great ideas for projects I gleaned from this work. One of the strong areas of this book, unlike some others I have in my collection, is that the author does not assume that you already know something and goes ahead and explains even simple steps. The only weakness I found was that some of the information is just a bit dated as so much progress has been made in this field over the past two or three years. This is not a big problem though as there certainly is no "bad" information. This is a good one to add to your collection as it is nice to have on hand to answer questions as you are working. It is also a very handy book to have if you happen to be teaching a course in working with Polymer clays. The instructions here can be worked into a lesson plan quite nicely. Highly recommend.

Im new at polymer clay and this book is just perfect.Ive loaned it out but kept track of it so no one forgets to bring it back too..I really couldnt have learned so much about canning and the craft of beads in polymer clay without this book..ITs a must add to your clay library.Mrs.C.

This book got me into making jewelry. It has everything from the very simple, to complex canework. I've taken many of the examples in this book and made them into my own design. I would definitly recomend this book for anyone, if your just starting out or you already know what your doing.

Creative Clay Jewelry is one of the many books that attempt to cover polymer clay work from the very basics to quite advanced. While other books are probably more successful at that (Sue Heaser's Polymer Clay Techniques Book, for example), Creative Clay Jewelry has some good projects and solid information, and would be quite useful to the beginning to intermediate clayer.It's unfortunate that there's no real indication of level of difficulty in the projects; they don't follow any logical progression. Some of the early projects use very basic techniques only - jelly rolls, marbling - which could probably be discussed in the introduction section. However, just a few projects in, there's a geometric pattern that would be quite difficult and frustrating to do as your third or fourth PC project. I'd advise careful consideration when selecting a project from this book.Dierks does provide a much more detailed ingredient list, including things like findings and clay amounts, which other books tend to skip. She even specifies particular brands and colors, but it isn't necessary to adhere to them.On a more personal note, I got less use out of this book than most of my PC books, simply because the projects were very bright, busy, and colorful - and that's very far from my style. But for those who love the casual, cheerful look that polymer clay can provide, this book might well be great.

There are so many examples of beautiful clay jewelry that it makes this book facinating to look at. Anyone can do it, the instructions are very simple with many pictures and diagrams to help you along the way. There are many hints and tips on how to make these beautiful designs with simple household utencils. I would definitly reccomend this book to people who love art and love to work with their hands.