Is this a good jewelry starter kit? Found on Amazon.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

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[Jirel]

1. You need more than this.

I can tell by the stones what company put this out, LOL. Here’s what’s not great/missing:

1) No wire end crimps or crimp tool, in the pic. For sealing off ends of a necklace neatly, you need both.

2) The metal findings - pins and jump rings - are utter crap quality from that maker. They are super stiff, and the jump rings are almost always mis-cut. Not the biggest deal, but you’ll struggle more than necessary to get good quality work done. You sure won’t be effectively using that jump ring tool on jump rings you have to reshape.

3) No round-nose pliers. Those pins? You’ll need to learn how to make a loop to close the other end, and connect it to something else. You can do a poor job with regular jewelry pliers, but you won’t get pretty, professional-looking results, or learn good technique.

4) Crap-quality tools. Can you use or learn with the couple pliers provided? Sure. Will you hate them? Probably. Good pliers have an integrated set of metal spring pieces that pop your tool open by default. You have ever do much less hand strain and frustration that way. The tools pictured here look like the super-cheap kind where the spring steel isn’t integrated, but just shoved down inside very stretchy, often loose handle covers that slip off at times. That causes you to get the spring pieces misaligned so they actually will catch sometimes so you can’t close the plier until you’ve fixed it for the umpteenth time, or even just fall off altogether and have to be fixed (again and again).


So, should you not buy this at all? Nah. But, I’d look for a good set of tools probably in short order after you get some practice, and realize that in a pretty short amount of time you’ll realize how bad some of these components are when you buy actual decent-quality parts.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

2. Thank You! n/t

[haele]

3. I got it for the granddaughter, it's okay for a starter kit.

I'd suggest another pair of needle nosed pliers to do wire braiding if you want to make rings (the kit gives you ring sizers).
She makes a lot of earrings, so I also got her a tackle box, some hypo-allegenic earring findings and a couple $5 - $9 strands of real stone beads to expand her kit to make birthstone earrings or fancier bracelets for her friends and families.
There's no instructions, but the kit itself is pretty decent as a starter kit. The stone beads are of decent size and reasonable quality (we didn't find any broken ones) and are suitable for "chip" type jewelry.
If you want to do fancier jewelry, it would be good to get some of those cheap stone bead strands - I even found a $12 strand of freshwater pearls for her that look good "encased" in wire wrap as dangles for earrings and pendants.
Full disclosure - I already had a nice collection of good findings to supplement this kit.

Haele

[Lady Freedom Returns]

5. I'm just trying to work with my hands to try and relive the stiffness.

I'm to the point of trying something.

[dem in texas]

6. I get where you're coming from

I have the same problem and jewelry making does help my stiff finger joints. Now I am so old (82) I keep my finger from getting stiff with crafting, but now the old eyesight is failing. I had to buy me a magnifying lamp so I could see to close off my necklaces and earrings.

I agree, no crimps, not good jewelry pliers and no crimp pliers.

You could start with leather it is easier to close off.

Go to Fire Mountain gems, request a catalog from them. They also have lots of helpful videos, too. I buy my display stands and bags, and lots of finings from Fire Mountain, been shopping their site for years. When I first started beading, I bought some cheap tools from Michaels, later I invested in a complete set of good jewelry pliers and tools ($40).

Also don't buy cheap beading wire especially for a beginner, it is hard to handle and not forgiving if you make a mistake.

The more I write this, the more I think you ought to invest in a book on learning to bead. Hope this information is helpful.

When I make a new design, I like to take it "for a cruise" and see if I get any comments.. If it is a good design, I write down the patter and what materials I used.

I am sorry I can't post any images, but my old PC died about 3 weeks ago and unfortunately I had quit making back-ups. I bought a new PC and just got it running, next is to get my data off the old PC.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

7. Mountain Fire Gems. Thanks!

[hippywife]

4. I've been making assemblage jewelry for a long time

and it's been my experience that these sorts of kits are usually full of things that for one reason or another you can't/won't use. The quality usually isn't the greatest, either.

It really depends on what you want to make. I've very rarely used coils of wire (except for SoftFlex for necklaces occasionally), those head and eye pins look incredibly short, and my tools are: 2 pair straight nose (not needle nose) pliers, a set of rosary pliers and a side cutter. Mine are inexpensive ones from a hardware store, not the expensive ones that jewelry suppliers sell and I've been using them since I started. I've never used a jump ring opener like that one, so other than never needing one, can't tell you much about those. Jump rings aren't difficult to open. Haven't ever used tweezers, either. Of course, everyone has their preferences.

Rather than starting out with a kit like this, I recommend looking at what it is you'd like to make and start there. Maybe find an online project and ease your way into it by just ordering the items you need for it to see if you even enjoy doing it/have a knack for it before investing a lot of money. Maybe take an in-person (COVID safe) class at a local bead shop where the project design and the materials for it are included. That will allow for hands on assistance if you need it. Then you can decide what/if you really want to sink money into having on hand.

Beadaholique has some decent video tutorials, both "how-to" steps and projects. You don't have to buy you supplies from them, if you don't want to, but for people just starting out, their videos can be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/c/beadaholique

Since few of these things are sold in onesies or twosies, if you continue, before you know it, you'll end up with tons of beads and findings. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Always willing to help.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

8. Thank You n/t