Crafts Hobbies Books

I LOVE this book! I haven't found a better kids' craft/idea book than this. Very cute ideas, the instructions are very easy-to-follow (nice illustrations that children can understand and views of the "finished product" to motivate kids), and I love that most of the projects only require items that I already have in the house. My three year old daughter has loved everything we've made from the book and it always keeps us busy when things start to get dull.

This book is FABULOUS!!! All the crafts I have used from this book have been excitedly anticipated and completed by my students from the very young to six years old. It is brightly illustrated and filled with a trove of ideas.

Exactly what the editorial review and all the reviewers said, bottom line: this book is absolutely amazing. I get most of my material from dollar store or everyday home item. Pictures are vivid and clear even my kids understand what is going on (3 and 4 years old). I'm a very neat, tidy person and these ideas are not messy at all. My kids can do most of these activities

"I'm soooo BOOOOOORRRRED!"

You'll never hear this again from the kids in your circle. If you are Mom, Big Sis, Babysitter or Favorite Auntie, you need this book in your arsenal of tools to keep kids (and you) enthralled with many and varied activities to pass the time happily and productively!

There's something here for the holidays, different media, clear, detailed instructions, illustrations, a color wheel and an index!

THIS BOOK IS GREAT! Turn free time into happy time -- I guarantee you'll find tons of stuff that you and your kids will love to make and keep as treasured keepsakes. The best part is that wonderful feeling of pride and accomplishment that even very young children can have from completing a project.

Very highly recommended!

I love this book! I am not a crafty person at all but my kids like to do it. There are so many easy crafts with things you should have around the house. Plus most of them don't make a huge mess!

I love looking at Kaffe Fassett books; his quilts are the best! Someday I want to try to make one of his designs, but using fabrics of my choosing. The designer fabrics are spendy.

I hav eevery single one of his book and I like this one the best. ALl his books are fantastic. They are artworks and so European. Glad Kaffe got into the quilting market.

Few designers have the eye for the daring color and riotous pattern combinations found in Fassett's work, and the sun-splashed glory in these photographs makes for a delicious visual feast. For the more conservative...and even beginning quilter, the patterns are doable in other fabric choices. This is a book to set the creative juices bubbling.

This one is the nicest of Kaffe's quilting books yet so far. There are 20 quilt designs for all levels of technical ability and they all use Kaffe's fabrics in spectacular ways.

The photography and printing quality of the book allow this to be one of the most functionally usable quilt books I own. I am again inspired to take up my rotary cutting wheel and start piecing.

The graphics and instructions are clear and well diagrammed. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

I have most of Kaffe Fassett's other books and I have to say this one was just ok. His Glorious Patchwork and Passionate Patchwork had much nicer quilts.

This is a great book to add to your collection. There is lots of information and pictures. I bought this book for my husband who has done a little blacksmithing and is wanting to set up a shop at home. He has several other blacksmithing books and really liked this book.

A good beginners book, But as a working smith I enjoyed it and found some good tricks, and ideas for my own work.
Great illistrations, good projecte.

This is a good beginner to intermediate book to help someone understand and start blacksmithing. The suthor is well versed in her art and provides good pictures for students to better understand the forging process. Like most books of this kind, however, a student is best served having taken a ahort course in blacksmithing to better understand the terminology.

Although I am very familiar with working with Metal, and many other forms of crafting, I knew little of Blacksmithing. I have always been interested in Blacksmiths since I was a child, but knew nothing of their background, history, and the tricks of the trade so to say that they used to form beautiful and more importantly, useful items that they created.

I recently had the opportunity to work in a blacksmith shop, but I had to do so alone, as the former blacksmith had moved on. Hence I purchased several books to learn of their ways.

I was very interested in this book for one just because it was written by a female blacksmith, something I found to be unheard of, as I never in my life saw a female blacksmith working any forge I ever encountered. I felt that I had to have this book over all others as it would give me not just knowledge of blacksmithing, but a woman's point of view on it, which I felt could be very enlightening.

I could not have been more correct. This is so far the best book I have purchased on blacksmithing, and I have purchased 8 here through Amazon. This book is very well written, depicted, laid out, and explained. I loved the mixture of some of the history, and more so the insight of the craft. For example a simple account of how you will keep getting burned, I laughed over for some time, and yes, so far, I have gotten burned twice. Yea, I'm a newbie, read the book, you will laugh and only then really understand this statement. Also how the Blacksmith bug will bite you and you know it has if scraps of iron start to almost call out to you, grabbing your full attention since as you look at it, you depict in your mind all the things you could make that piece into. I for one remember that line in the book since I have already noticed that the Bug has fully bitten and infected me.

Out of reading the whole book, I was only left with 2 or 3 items that I didn't understand, and that may have been that I missed something in my reading of it, since I did so in a hurried piecemeal fashion. In other words, when I had to put it down or get fired from work, I hurriedly picked it back up as soon as I could to read more!

This is an awesome book. If you are to buy only ONE book, then make it this one. Even the projects in the back are as good as or better than a Project book I purchased. LOL... Enjoy!

The author clearly put a lot of time into this book, and it shows. Clearly explains the basics of blacksmithing without jargon and with useful illustrations. It is entirely on the level about the pros and cons of blacksmithing, the dangers, the rewards, and it is written with engaging humor at times. Great job. I recommend this highly for the beginner!

This overview of decorating tips for both wheel and handbuilding contains numerous great ideas that I would like to try plus easy to follow instructions for most of the techniques. It is a perfect book for any potter who wants to expand their decorating reportoire.

Some of the design is old-fashioned in our country, but the recipes are accurate and work well. I tried the tobacco stain recipe and it worked well for me. Good, clear instructions.

This is a very useful book to introduce students to a very wide range of possible decorating techniques for a wide range of pottery steps (wet, leather hard, bisque fired, glazed). There are several projects outlined at a very high level, but these seem to be for some of the more common decorating techniques. Not an awful lot of time is spent on most of what I would think of as the more uncommon techniques. But at least you have an introduction to those techniques.

This is a great book as a quick reference to get the wheels turning in your head, but there's not a lot of "how-to" behind it; a lot of inspiring photos, but not a lot of text.

I'm a college student and hobbyist who dabbles in ceramics. This book is awesome! It provides information on a variety of projects, and details the steps to guide you through each project. I can hardly wait for fall classes, so I can experiment with some of the techniques in the book.

As an amateur potter, I found this book to be one of the very best I've found. Not only is
everything clearly explained, the pictures show you exactly what he's talking about.

Generally, pottery books are either inspiring source books, or flat how-to's. This
one has the virtues of both Virtuallly every page has a helpful insight into a technique, e.g. how
to make perfectly bevelled edges for square shapes: so easy and helpful.

This is a great book for beginner potters, like me, but there are so many lovely
pieces that I'm sure it will inspire skilful artists as well.

Rosem'ry

This book is ideal for a beginner! The patterns are easy to use and the directions are very simple to follow!

I love this book!

I can't praise this book highly enough. The basic projects are simple to make, but also highly functional. The emphasis on "making things the way you like" gives this book a welcoming feel.

There are few projects in this book that you can't add a felt appliqué to, making it easy to personalize your projects.

In addition to the great projects and patterns in this book, the book itself is a joy to read-- if you're anything like me, the writing will have you in stitches (pun intended)!

I work with children and this book was so perfect for them. Super cute!

79 Pages of the most amazingly adorable stuff that you can make at home for very little money will entertain you for hours on end and make your home-made gifts the sensation of your neighborhood! As the author says, "Just carrying cute stuff around can make you feel happy."

Using simple things easily found at any crafts store, the book will teach you to go from gathering your supplies together to making your patterns and finishing your projects.

Oh! And the projects are so original. The long doll scarves, the book covers, the key rings, hair ornaments and more will send you over the moon with delight!

This is a goldmine of stuff to make that you will treasure and have fun using!

My 13 yo has ripped through Aranzi's Cute Book this summer. After years of doing craft projects that were fun, but not fun enough that she wanted to repeat, she has found one she wants more and more of: making Aranzi's charming little characters. A happy bonus is she's caught up on thank you's, mailing off sophisticated little creatures (holding message signs she cuts out of felt)to every adult who ever did her a kindness, and making them for children she babysits too.

Last week she asked me to order another book so she can do more, but this book offers nothing new - the characters are almost all recycled from the Cute Book. They are applied to accessories in this book, but these are uninspired and predictable. We're so disappointed, after the freshness of the Cute Book.

I'm trying to keep in mind that these books are written for very beginner sewers who lack the confidence to make their own patterns, but everything Aranzi does really could be designed by anyone capable of sewing them up, and I'd encourage everyone to try. Look at the cover of this book, and just pick up a couple rectangles of fabric and go for it. I bet you will come up with successful projects that are every bit as fun and cute as these.

This book includes all the information you need to try some basic screen printing. The instructions are detailed enough to lead a complete novice through the screen printing process without being redundant or uninteresting. The book also has some great graphics and covers some valuable information on screen printing history and important figures in its development.

Definitely the perfect source if you are just getting started with screen printing - this book has it all!

This is a fantastic purchase for both beginner and experienced silkscreeners, but is particularly great for those wanting to get started. The book is inspiring and interesting, providing detailed steps for creating your own prints on fabric, paper, and other objects. It also includes a history of silkscreening, a glossary, material supplier information, tips for starting your own business, and several free transparencies that you can use for your first print. Great buy- I highly recommend it.

This book is a great primer on screen printing! It is kind of like "T-shirts for Fun & Profit"-lite. This book is particularly useful for the weekend warrior or part-time entrepreneur. The step-by-step examples are terrific and clearly explained. As soon as I paged through it I came up with some ideas.

That said, if you are looking for more detailed information, you should also pick-up How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit. But get this one, too!

I have to agree with some of the other reviewers here. This is a nicely organized book covering a multitude of relevant subjects, but there's very little useful detail in here. I think Taunton made a mistake by trying to stuff too much into too little space. I'm a decent intermediate woodworker and thought this book would help me with some of the things I struggle with in making decorative boxes. But I already knew about 75% of what's in this book. Besides too little detail, the photos, although plentiful, are too small to be of value. Sorry Taunton, a nice effort, but this one misses the mark for me.

The book gave me several new ideas for design as well as new techniques for creating beautiful boxes. It was well illustrated but could have included some specific plans.

Like all the Taunton's Guides, this one is well written with lots of color illustrations. It has sections on all the phases of box making (wood preparation, joinery, finishing, lids, joinery, linings, etc., and it covers multiple ways to accomplish each of these steps. More comprehensive discussion of joinery and finishing, if you want it, can be found in other books from Taunton's dedicated to those topics. This book does not have plans for specific projects, but rather explains the concepts so that you can invent your own box designs. Some of the methods are quite complex and can't be fully understood with a single reading, but the information is all there and if this kind of work appeals to you, this book can teach you to make nice boxes, simple or elaborate.

This book is very informative , easy to read & understand.If you know nothing about turning, it might be a little much. I've played with my lathe about 3 months now & wanted to get serious about the hobby.This book hit the nail on the head!

This book provides great information for box making whether you are a veteran woodworker or a novice. Illustrations and pictures are very useful for conveying information described in written format. Highly recommended!

Very funny as I find all of her books. I really enjoy this author and all of her books.

One of several warm, witty, and ultimately reassuring books by the Yarn Harlot. Thank goodness that Stephanie is coming out of the closet - or the freezer - and speaking out honestly about the foibles and blessings commonly found in the varied and colorful community of the Yarn Obsessed and Wooly-Minded. If you've ever feared that archaeologists would someday find you buried in your spouse's fossilized yarn stash, or if you have started thinking of the skeins draped over your living room curtain rods as a 'clever interior decorating scheme', these are the books for you. It won't cure what ails you, but it will reassure you that you aren't crazy. Or at least that you aren't alone!

As usual, another successful and very humerous book about the trials and tribulations of super-knitter Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Only she can tell her stories the way she does. I will always think of finding part of her stash in a coat sleeve.

This book will make you laugh out loud if you are a Knitter (that's a knitter with a capital K) or know someone who is a Knitter. Great comic relief for those of us who like to knit and use fibers as a hobby. You will see yourself or friends in each chapter. A great book to read as Stephanie knows how to describe our hobby fun in ways that are sure to make you smile and laugh. Enjoy!

I expected a good fun read, I didn't expect that it would be good enough to move me to tears in places. This author has a wonderful voice and I will be getting more of her books.