Crafts Hobbies Books

This is a great book. I have always wanted to offer my customers top quality framed and matted photographs, but wasn't shure how to go about it. This book opened up a whole new world to me, and I bought some reasonably price tools and now I can frame and matt like a professional. This book is worth its' weight in gold.

Author writes from first hand experience and adds in good technical details. Good examples of using common tools and professional tools to create desired results. Many examples and pictures to show how to perform each step. Many areas of framing, matting, and hanging the art are covered. Many references to the best practices are included. Overall a very well written reference book. A great place to start, but include a lot of extra material so the intermediate framer will get a lot out of this book also.

This book focuses mostly on woodworking techniques and building picture frames, with a minimal amount on matting (using the Alto mat cutter), mounting, or aesthetics (choosing colors and proportions). Some modern methods of mounting (for instance, strip mounts in which no glue touches the artwork) aren't even mentioned here. This book might be useful if you want to focus on building picture frames, but for a more general introduction to the kind of framing I might do myself, including assembling frames, I found Logan's "Mat, Mount, and Frame It Yourself" more useful.

These questions are misleading - I ordered one book, and received and paid for two - I have sent emails complaining, and all I get back (weeks later) is this stupid email asking me to rate the book - which book? - where were you when I asked how I got two books? And how do I correct this? - but NO, instead you send me this idiotic questionaire about "the book" I received - is anybody there? Are you people there, or am I talking to a computer? You pretend to care, but it appears you are just robots - HOW DID I GET TWO BOOKS, AFTER ORDERING ONE, PAY FOR TWO and GET ZERO RESPONSE TO MY QUESTIONS?!! Your computer generated concern is phony - the books were fine, Amazon is suspect!

Treat this as an encyclopedia. There is a lot of good information in this book, but a lot more than you need to get going. I have only just finished wading through this thing (after six months) and would have been better off with a book 1/8 the size of this one. For a "How To" book, the author is way too verbose on his way to getting to the bottom line--if he ever does. Only because I am very good at puzzles was I able to pick out the things I really need and the best methods to complete anything - otherwise, you can get terribly confused. The author wastes a lot of time on "you could do this" and "some people do this" when the most helpful advice would be just to say, "Do this."

Don't take this as too harsh an indictment of the book. Afterall, I Learned Everything I Need to Know About Picture Framing from the book. There is A LOT of stuff in it. But I could have done, and you can do, without the exhaustive descriptions of differences between various manual, as well as, power tools. It's a hobby, I expect to spend some money...just tell me what do.

Excellent book for building and electric guitar. The instructions are wonderfully clear. There is also loads of general guitar information you'll pick up as you read through it.

Worth reading for any guitar enthusiast whether you or not you are considering building one yourself.

This is quite an informative book for a beginner electric guitar or other electric instrument maker. There are three chapters which follow the course of making two guitars and a bass, and different neck/ body constructions are covered pretty well through these instructional examples. Different techniques for different applications are examined. I think the structure could be more logical and progressive for this book, but it's not a major detraction. I think that there could be a more fundamental analysis of constructing a guitar rather than basing the work on traditional and contemporary practices. In this way guitar makers could come up with there own ideas and approaches, but overall it's a good book in a subject area that seems pretty scant for want of information. Also sometimes the author is a little misleading for the sake of telling a joke, for instance about 'bashing in' frets. It could be edited better.

I am a hobby builder and, like many, I suppose, had made some beginner mistakes and was unsure of some proper techniques. This book is excellent whether you are building a guitar from scratch and making every part by hand, or using some ready made parts (perhaps neck and body) then assembling and setting up an instrument yourself. The wiring section is particularly helpful, both for builders and repair people. The book is written in a self effacing, witty British style. Lots of good photographs and diagrams are included as well.

This book does have useful information and reference, but is not the 'Fantastic', 'Electric guitar bible', that it has been touted to be here and on luthier sites.
Book is organized logically, but it doesn't exactly flow, and even though some bits are humorous it doesn't make up for drab writing. Melvin is a great builder and does make nice guitars.

The book probably is worth the money for the first time builder, but not for someone who has built one or two already.

Fed up with my local musical instrument retailers, I set out to build my very own guitar armed with this book: Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock. I have to say I learned A LOT from this book, it's got a lot of very detailed information. However as an absolute beginner to this art who has a lot of questions, I can say it has some shortcomings.

For one, as another reviewer mentioned, there are way too may pages spent babbling on about the history of the electric guitar. This would all be fine and good, BUT it is mixed in with the instructional text, so there's no way to skip over it or read around it. It's not like you can just skim until you find what you need because when building a guitar, missing the slightest detail can leave you completely screwed. You actually have to read it all to get the details you need, and it isn't always interesting or relevant. The history content should have been separated from the instructional text, the net result is a book that is not very clear or concise.

Secondly, I hope you're a fan of Fender and/or Gibson, because the entire book is centered around them. You'll learn the history of these two brands from the very first one built onwards. Also all the specs for the building are based on those of Fender and Gibson. I don't mind this, as I am a fan of both, but this book does not give an answer-all formula for any style guitar, if such a thing exists.

Melvyn describes the craft in a very great amount of detail and he is very honest, but to me the book was more discouraging than anything. Perhaps I could save you some time right now before you even buy this:

-To build a guitar you need some ABOVE AVERAGE woodworking skills. If you just woodwork in your spare time or you never have, do not even attempt this.
-You need a lot of tools that I can almost gaurantee you don't have in readily available to you.
-Building your own guitar wil NOT save you money. You will most likely end up spending more money than you would on a brand new guitar.

Those are just a few of the many things you should be aware of perhaps even prior to purchasing this book. Hope this was helpful, thanks for reading!

Do you have a muffin recipe that you love? This book is like having a favorite muffin recipe with many variations. I guess if it is your favorite don't argue with it. But, this book is full of variations of a basic recipe.
It is a nice book, but I had hoped for more variety.
But, I do love muffins.

I liked Caseys recipes but..it was almost tiring just reading her instructions,like...start with this pan,then put the mixture in that pan...then stir both pans at the same time.I make and mix my soap in one pan,it's really not that difficult.I agree with another reviewer who said it does'nt have to be a team effort.The best soapmaking book I have ever bought is "The Everything Soapmaking Book" by Alicia Grosso. This book has all the information you will ever need to make really beautiful handmade soap.

I had taken intrest in soap making and so I bought this book off of Amazon.com. It helped me a lot and had some awesome recipies in it.

If you are an inexperienced soapmaker and you read this book, I think it is probably going to scare you to death. You'll drop the book and run away screaming and never give another instant of thought to making milk soaps. MILK-BASED SOAPS was an informative book and I feel that it taught me some useful things (I have my own soapmaking business), but I was making goats' milk soaps long before I read this book and it just isn't as hard as she makes it sound, I promise.

I was really, really puzzled by Makela's instruction to cool the milk/lye mixture down to 80 degrees F while having the fats/oils at 120 degrees F and THEN mixing the two together. She says in the book that the milk/lye mixture will want to keep separating and falling to the bottom of the pot while you stir -- there's a reason for that, you know. It's because there is not enough 'synergy' between these two substances that are being combined at such wildly disparate temperatures. You know what? I bring my milk/lye mixture and my fats/oils mixture both to 110 degrees F for a 6 pound batch of soap and I have NEVER had any trouble. And I do NOT use all the multiple pots and blenders to scoop the raw soap back and forth, etc. I use one heavy stainless steel pot, one sturdy plastic Rubbermaid pitcher for the lye/milk and one stick blender. This does not have to be a group effort. Makela tends to make this sound as if you need a tag team of willing friends dressed in Haz-Mat suits standing at the ready to assist you in your time of need.

Truly. I make this soap all by myself. I do it all the time. It only has to be a big hairy deal if you intentionally make it that way.

One part where Makela is dead-on right is when she says to put the milk (in its pitcher) into a cold bath -- I stop up one side of my sink and add cool water and ice cubes -- and then pour the lye flakes slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-owly into the milk. She is correct when she says that this should be AT LEAST a fifteen minute process, which is one of the reasons why I charge more for my goats' milk soaps. I owe Makela a thanks for the cool water bath idea -- it's a great one and I have never had trouble with the goats' milk overheating since I've done that. I appreciate that advice immensely. When you stir rhythmically, add the lye slowly and keep the milk nice and cool, you'll always have a sunny yellow milk/lye mixture that will easily combine with the fats and oils to make a really beautiful, creamy, buttery beige-colored soap.

There were some nice recipes in this book and some worthy advice for marketing your handcrafted creations. All in all, it was a good book. Buy it -- and don't let yourself be intimidated by what is not really a difficult process at all.

I was initailly intimidated by this book and I owned it for a while before I attempted her methods. But if you want to make soap with real milk (not powdered as an additive) this is a great resource. Making whole milk soap is not easy. This methods works. I admit I use a stick blender and keep it in one pot but my milk has never curdled due to her cold bath method. Her recipes produce gentle, silky soaps and are made with readily available ingredients. My main complaint with some of the other books is that you cannot get many of the ingredients unless you go online and pay shipping. I agree with another reviewer that she does not explain the why behind some of her methods. I think the glycerine and the sugar are for more lather but I'm not positive. I know the amount of honey is limited due to the risk of the soap overheating in the mold. My only other concern about her recipes is that they do not produce much lather and I like bubbles. However, now that I know the method and have had a lot of success I can experiment with the recipes to customize the soap.

This book has many good tips and a variety of edges. It is easy to follow. I have waited a while to get this book and am glad I have it now.

This is a great addition to my quilt books. I like all the ideas it has and the layout is eye catching.

The book Quilters Edge is very helpful in describing different ways to finish a quilt to make it different and unique. The instructions, with pictures, is very helpful. Highly recommended.

I loved this book so much that I purchased three more of her books to make the quilts shown in Quilters Edge. I now own five of her books.

I wanted to learn how to do scalloped edges on quilts. I learned that and also how to do other special edges. I am looking forward to trying out all the different techniques. I think this is an invaluable addition to anyone's quilting library.

When I first received my copy of this book, I was amazed at the amount of mittens in it, and the fact that there are patterns for each and every one of them. Then I actually started to read it and got a bit confused because of the way the book is put together, but since I got used to it, I've only loved it. Amazing book, countless possibilities!

Not only is this an incredibly interesting history of Latvian mittens, it gives you all the information you need to make up your own or use one of the complete patterns. The differing color combos are inspiring--if you have any interest in these, this book is a great value!

This is an excellent book which I'd been coveting for some time. Its well written and the instructions are clear although I don't really see the point of the book being written half in english and half in Lativian. The charts are also excellent and let you make up your own combination of patterns. If you've got vision problems, or like to be able to knit without having the chart pressed to your nose then it would be better to enlarge the charts. Its a very inspiring book and everyone I know will be getting mittens for their Christmas this year.

This is a pleasure - great pictures, and lots of charts, and good stories about the patterns. I have read it several times since receiving my copy a few weeks ago. If you are interested in knitting, knitting charts, traditional knitting, gloves and mittens, or Latvia, you'll find this a fun book.

A great book , but not the best. I find it a bit difficult to see the patterns since they are like copies of copies and to black - and to figure out where to set the thumb. Really nice patterns and some words from the different designs.

I really liked the whole book, but I especially liked the part about kids treehouses. Some of them were homemade, and some of them were built by an artist. Before I read the book, I was wondering what different treehouses look like. I thought the treehouses with a loft and a ladder would be lots of fun to explore. Some of the treehouses were hotels. One of the treehouses was built by a robber! He had used it as a place to store his disguises. I thought it was a very good book.

This is the third book from Peter Nelson of Treehouse Workshop. His previous two delved in depth into treehouse construction. This work is more a survey of the many wonderful treehouses to be found throughout the world. It is crammed with quality color photographs and, unlike a previously reviewed work, has a unifying narrative throughout.

Peter starts you off with a very useful section entitled "Choice of Tree". There he briefly touches upon suitability of various tree species to treehouse construction and provides a mini sketch of each tree species with a treehouse. Immediately after comes some very accurate arboriculture advice from Jonathan Fairoaks. It's nice to find a treehouse book that gets this part right for a change.

For me, the real value of this book is in the tour it takes you on of many notable treehouse. I bring this book to meetings with clients so they can see the many incredible things possible. And for those who've never considered it possible that a treehouse could be any more than a small, roughly built box, this book will blow their minds.

What this book lacks is building advice. It's not a "how-to" book. There really is no great "how-to" book out there. Even so, highly recommended.

This book has the best pictures and if your looking for ideas
and inspiration, this is the book to buy.

This book along with Treehouses of the World are inspirational page after page. If you are a fan of treehouses, this book is a must in your collection.

This book is just as good as the front cover picture suggests: pie-in-the-sky treehouses. The kind that you dreamed about as a kid? Its obvious from this book that some adults still think about and make their dreams become beautiful structures in reality. If you ever wanted a pictoral book of treehouses representing your wildest imaginations, this is the book for you!

Inspiring

One of the best beading color books available.

It will either help you with color or inspire you to get beading.

This book is arranged on themes of color. Within each theme, seascape tones, for example, there are several color themes.

Color "recipes" are listed in such a way that it's easy to follow. For example, it will list:

Deep Turquoise - 30%
Turquoise - 20%
Bright Blue - 25%
White 25%

There are only two things I wish the book had, neither of which would prevent me from buying another copy should mine become damaged.

1. Patterns for the stunning pieces that are her own work. She has several pieces throughout the book that I'd love to make but can't quite figure out. I hope it's her next book.

2. Some sort of bead reference. For example, which delica numbers match. Not that I'd want to use all delicas, but I can at least pick the suggested from something that is known and adjust from there. While I can understand the author wanting us to discover for ourselves, in this day and age of internet ordering, if there was some standard reference - at least when I picked colors out on the internet, I would have something to reference to.

The biggest problem I had as a new beader, was color. This book lays it all out including how different beads can turn different colors when the light hits them. In addition, the color wheel explanations were so helpful. I now find it much simpler to combine beads and colors.

Excellent book, bright graphics, wonderful suggestions and explanations. No beader should be without this book.

This is exactly what the wife was wonting. She is very pleased with the book as well as i am. I have a little color problem and this book helps.

This book does, in fact, have some nice color mixes, but the cover is misleading in that it looks like they use gemstones or large beads to illustrate. This is primarily a seed bead book. Had I had a better understanding of what it included, I would have passed on it. Now that I own it, I may look occasionally, but it will not have much impact on my color choices. Nicely presented material, but a color wheel is almost as useful.

This book is adorable! My daughters love the designs. I will say up front that the polish it comes with gets no stars. There's no way you could make those designs with that polish/brush. I used regular polish and sometimes regular acrylic paint from the craft store. I also used very small painting brushes and other small tools to get the right effect. The designs are pretty intricate. If you're crafty, the book is worth having to buy your own supplies to go with it, just to use for the ideas. Having bees, bears, dogs, ladybugs, etc... on your kids (and yourself!) is so cute! I usually did just the toes - it's too much work to get rubbed off as fast as it would on fingers. A good top coat will make it last much longer. If you're not crafty, it's probably not for you.

This book is so nice. In the stores it sells for about $19. I got it on Amazon for $6. The nail designs in this book are so pretty that I want to try them all. They are also easy to try and do yourself. I just used the book to paint hearts on my finger nails and using the directions they came out well. I love this book. It even comes with it's own nail polishes, even though I chose to use my own polish.

I purchased the product for my ten year old daughter. I thought that it would have a more thorough discussion on nail preparation than it did. I also thought that the nail polish would stay on longer than a day, it didn't. Even the amount of designs were very limited. I guess I am comparing to a nail book I saw once and haven't been able to replace. This book is very lacking in comparison even though the other one was a young adult book as well. Any way, if you have very young children who doesn't care about how long the polish stays on or how good it REALLY looks then this book and paints are okay otherwise steer clear.

My daughter, age 11, and I have so much fun with the ideas for designs. I gave it four starts because of the polish. We got nail art pens that work great and give fine detail.

I ordered the Klutz Nail Art from Amazon. I was very disappointed when 2 of the nail polishes were dried SOLID with the brush broken and the rest were very dry and a horrible consistency. Just get this at Barnes and Nobles. Not worth the disappointment.

I think it's great with lots of neat animals but my 12 year old has yet to touch it.

I'm really impressed with this book. The models are solid and easy to construct. The programming is also easy to understand. My daughter and I really enjoyed this book. She gives it a big thumbs up, which is five stars in my book.

My son has been doing Lego robotics through a school program all year, and he finally saved enough money to buy his own Lego NXT Mindstorms kit. In the past week, he has spent hours tweaking ideas he learned in the program as well as the ones included in the instructions that came with the kit. I thought this book would be a natural fit, since it is one of the few that are made more for children than adults.

He was very excited to get it, too, and immediately started constucting the spider bot... and then he realized he didn't have half the needed parts. So he tried to make the frog bot...and again, same thing. He was very frustrated by this point and asked that we return the book.

I told him I would try to find the parts he was missing online, and, thanks to the companion Web site, starting making a list of what he would need... which ended up being over 200 pieces of dozens of different types!

My son would've rated this book a 1, but I'll give it a couple of extra stars for content, the Web site and the fact it is written for children. But after shelling out $250 for the kit and another $20 for the book, be warned: The spending won't stop there. (Not to mention the hours you'll spend tracking everything down.)

Animals have taken over my house. Every time I turn around something is hopping, walking or skittering across the floor. I blame No Starch Press and the LEGO company; a NXT MindStorms kit and a copy of "The LEGO NXT Mindstorms Zoo" ("Zoo") by Fay Rhodes has my 15 year old daughter (with previously no real interest in robots or programming) building all sorts of infernal machines.

The release of the MindStorms NXT has brought forward a plethora of new possibilities and books to inform us of them. No Starch has published several. "Zoo", subtitled "A Kid-Friendly Guide to Building Animals with the NXT Robotics System" seems well pitched at the beginner; all the models are easily built and programming the models for the basic behaviours in the book is easy and well explained.

At first impression a retail NXT buyer may suffer some disappointment, the book is designed for those who have the Educational version of the NXT with a the extra Educational Resource Kit so you will be missing some pieces required for the models. Most NXT owners, though, will have some LEGO already and may have the pieces. Rhodes does go to the trouble of telling you which pieces and where to get them. Just keep this in mind if you are intending to give the book as a gift, you may wish to track down and purchase the extra pieces and include them to avoid disappointment.

The building instructions are a good size, more easily read and understood than those from LEGO themselves which I find a little too small. I also appreciated the parts guide at the start of each model; when you might have to go hunting through other sets for a piece or an alternate the guide meant you could get this over and done with at the beginning rather than just as you are about to complete the model.

The first few models are easily built and programmed, getting progressively harder as you go through the book. None are beyond the capabilities of an even moderately experienced LEGO builder. Rhodes also includes a few sidebars showing alternative parts that can be used for some of the harder to source pieces, a nice touch and one that encouraged my daughter to work around a couple of unavailable parts when building Strutter.

All the model programming uses LEGO's visual programming environment rather than any of the third party languages and tools. A good choice given the book's likely readers. The model programming is a little harder to do from the instructions, though this is more due to the black and white printing and a click together programming environment than any fault by author or publisher. While I had a little difficulty my daughter's eyes were able to cope and so I don't see this as a significant flaw in the book. Rhodes encourages the reader/builder to use the programming environment's ability to chunk code as a block and to develop using a bottom up approach.

For the target market the book is almost perfect, with a good tenor and an excellent choice of models to build. It would be an ideal book to buy for someone who has just gone through building the models included by LEGO in the kit. While the book is aimed at the younger end of LEGO's suggested age range for Mindstorms don't let that put you off purchasing a copy - it's the perfect second book for almost any NXT builder and the "Kid-" could be easily dropped from the subtitle.

Hi everyone,

I received this book last week Monday. When I bought this book, I was very sceptical about this book because a peacock on wheels on the cover was a little strange. But I also build a Giraffe with a fifth middle leg based on the book from Benjamin Erwin "Creative Projects with Lego Mindstorms (RIS kit)" which seems also unusual at that time. Also the book of Benjamin Erwin is also an excellent book. So this is of no surprise that I bought this book also.

My skepticism melted as snow for the sun when I saw the creatures and the building instructions inside the book. This book is clearly written with its audience in mind, ie Children. The building instructions are very clear and detailled. The explanations are also easy to follow.

What could be improved, is the explanation of the NXT-G programming language. In my opinion they go not deep enough. An in depth coverage of the NXT motors, touch, ultrasonic, light sensors is missing. Expecially the "Why" and "What for" questions are not answered. But that is already written in Jim Kelly's book "Lego Mindstorms NXT-G Programming Guide". Both books are complementary to each other. So if you buy the NXT Zoo, I think it is a good idea to by the NXT-G programming language also.

I build "Spiderbot" without any problem (I am an adult, I love robotics and bought my first RIS set in august 2005). I found it easy to build, despite the fact those images are not in color. Using color should have added an extra "touch" to this fine book but it would make it also much more expensive. Nevertheless all those images give a very clear and detailled view how to construct the animals.

Also the detailled inventory at the beginning of each design and the part substitution prevent of becoming frustrating when you need a piece of which you just ran out or do no have. You can clearly see what pieces you need and how much before you start building. When you have already bought other Lego Technic sets, you probably will have all the pieces you need. Only the canon seems to be a big problem because this piece seems very hard to find (I am living in Belgium and probably therefore I cannot find a place where I can buy the particular set). But when you live in the USA, there should be no problem at all. Also there are other types of Lego cannons (in the Excoforce sets) which can be substitution for this canon but I did not try it yet.

What I really regret about this book is that it is written in English only. So when your native language is English, your child can start building without problems. But when you like me living in a world with a different language (mine is Dutch), it makes it almost impossible for your child to follow the instructions on its own. I decided to translate the book into my Dutch language for my nephew and when it is allowed by the publisher of this book, I am more than willing to share the Dutch translation with others inside the Lego community. But I think because of copyright matters that this is not allowed. Nevertheless I can understand the reason why it is impossible to produce such books for other languages; English is a main language used in almost every part of the world. When this book should be written in Dutch for example, theya are only selling less than thousand copies because our language and many others are rarely used and only in very small parts of the world.

As my final conclusion. This book is a must have for children with in interest in animals and robotics. In a playfull way, they obtain technic insights and improve their skills. Also this book stimulates creativity because while building you get your own ideas on what could be added. On Spiderbot I would add a second "Ultrasonic" sensor pointed to the ground. So when Spiderbot is on a table, it should detect the end of the table and backup and start walking on another angle. Nevertheless when you add a second Ultrasonic sensor, you have to make sure you are using those Ultrasonic sensor in an intermitting frequency (the front off when your program is using the floor sensor and so fort) otherwise you do not get excact results. If an ultrasonic sensor is too difficult, you can use a light or Hi-Technic color sensor to scan the surface Spiderbot is walking. When the surface changes color, spiderbot backoff. For this kind of approach, your spiderbot can walk only on egally colored surfaces. And when you add a Compass sensor ... You see a lot of extra creativity can add a personal touch to these designs.

So lets start building and experimenting. This book is worth the price which is very reasonable in my opinion.

And about the author Fay Rhodes, very good work indeed! If we had an "intergalactic" Lego Hall of Fame you would have definatelly "First place". Hopefully we will see much more of your work in the future. Also a big "thank you" for your work inside the Lego Community.

Friendly greetings,

Bad_Wolf

Informative and readable. Obviously a labor of love. I give it 5 stars even though the Tom Caspar-inspired design I've settled on didn't come from this book.

A very complete workbench guide with just enough history, lots of technical info, and with high quality pictures and drawings.

Very fine expository writing for those interested in the history of and current state-of-the-art woodworking benches and accessories. Enclosed plans are a nice plus. The resource section is excellent. Well researched, well written, photography is exceptional.

EIM

Seeing various ways to lay out workbenches is nice and this book fulfills that mission.

For me this is a coffee table book. Alot of history and research about workbenches from the middle ages on up till now. Not much information or diagrams on building benches.