Book review- One Minute Paper Airplanes

This book and kit includes a book which has a good amount of information about making and launching paper airplanes, how to trouble shoot to get them to fly well and a bit about the dynamics of gliding flight in a fun way.

The include planes are printed in bright, smooth color on lightweight card stock, and can be popped out easily. They are not pre-scored, so you'll have to fold them yourself. Following the instructions in the book it's very easy. The book recommends using a ruler to fold, and I used a thin metal ruler and it made the straight folds. After doing the folds, I burnished them with a craft stick for very sharp folds, some parts are multilayered. There was an issue on the punch out of one of them where not all of the little V shaped areas to create the launching groove were punched, but a quick nip with small scissors fixed that. You can use either a stapler or glue to assemble them, but they are designed to be assembled using a stapler. Little lines indicate where the staples go.

The planes are all different shapes and themes. Some are very simple, some are a bit more complicated and might take longer than a minute to make. The big fun is in launching them. All the planes are designed to be launched using a rubber band launcher. You give the plane a light test throw which won't send it more than 10 feet to see if you need to adjust anything- tips in the book tell you how to adjust for drag and various other issues. After you have it ready, take it somewhere you have room and let it fly with the launcher!

So it's a bit of education, and a lot of fun. You get to make the planes, and some people will be inspired to design their own after trying the planes in the book. Then you get to launch them and see how far the different models fly and how well they fly.

My son and I had a lot of fun making and launching planes. It's a fun paper craft kit, the planes are well-designed for flight and appearance with a bold graphic appeal.

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I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Book Review- Decorating Eggs

I'm always a little sad when great resource books go out of print, and then excited when they get re-released.

If you've ever had an interest in pysanka eggs, this book has almost everything you need to know about the art. So I'll start with what it doesn't have- instructions for centering a design on an egg. Those can be found easily enough in other books and on the internet.

What it does have? Tips, instructions and design help from someone who spent decades decorating eggs for sale, doing shows, teaching people how to do it, and becoming very, very good at it.

It starts with a list of the tools and supplies you'll need. Starting with how to find the right kind of eggs, and the difference between types of kitskas then explaining the wax, dyes and finishing techniques. This is not strictly traditional, because there are a lot of time saving tools used, like rotary tools for cutting, egg blowers and polyurethane. All of which help you make a better finished egg and give you more time for creating your art.

Next, a step by step tutorial tells you how dye, explains the order of the colors you use, and how to apply wax. Then it tells you how to get the wax off your colored egg and how to finish it for display.

None of that is the best part of this book, which is full of color photos and display ideas.

The best part is the design ideas, the author shows how designs can be taken from other arts, textiles like batik- which also uses wax for resisting color are natural, but the geometric quilt designs are my favorite. The examples show how color can radically alter a simple geometric design, and where to look for ideas. Lacey designs, designs that look like henna, showing how different lengths of time in a dye bath can create great tone on tone effects are all part of the ideas offered.

For more traditional designs, there is a great chapter on the meaning of the design elements in Ukrainian eggs, it explains motifs, bands and color usage with sketched examples and gorgeous photos of eggs. If you want to design an egg specifically for a person that would have relevancy and be traditional, this information is fantastic.

At the end of the book, there is information about designing jewelry from eggs. How to cut them and stabilize them to create brooches, barrettes and pendants.

It encourages you to play. That you can go traditional, but that you can also decorate an egg to fit your own personality. It takes a lot of the mystery out of these gorgeous eggs, and makes the basic techniques less scary. I recommend this book to anyone interest in egg art, but also to people who haven't ever considered it but do things like zentangles or henna. The same designs you build on paper or skin will work on these eggs for a new way to display and market your art.


I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Christmas in July-craft gift idea!

I really like the Choose Friendship line of products, and have reviewed a few of them in the past like the My Friendship Bracelet Maker, which comes in several designs and more recently My Lanyard Maker.

They are well built, and I've recommended them to friends in real life as well as on here, showing people how to use them. They will have products featured on QVC for Christmas in July. The My Circle of Creativity is an incredibly well-built kumihimo type loom for weaving cords that can be used as friendship bracelets and My Ribbon Barrette Maker works as that very needed extra set of hands to weave 80s style ribbon barrettes.

Full Disclosure-

Crorey Creations does not pay me to post recommendations for their products, but they do give me free products to review. My opinions are always my own.

Book Review- The Ultimate Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook

Note from me- I know that generally my reviews are cookbooks or craft books. Sometimes though there are other reviews for series that I really love or that my family really enjoys. This is one of those.

I planned to do this review a month ago. The problem is that's a Worst-Case Scenario book. It's a nice, big thick one, full of lots of things from other volumes in the series, all arranged by setting. My whole family loves this series, especially my daughter and my husband. So for the last month I've been stealing it back from them, reading a few pages, then having to find it again to steal it back from whichever one of them took it. That's what you face with one of these.

I'm okay with that. It's not only a guide to situations you might find yourself in and situations that you are very unlikely to ever be in, it's also a conversation starter. The publishers talk to people who are experts in various fields on all sorts of unlikely topics and likely ones to get the best advice they can for any given dangerous situation they can imagine.

From the very helpful-
how to survive an earthquake
how to put out a grease fire
how to save your date, dog or self from choking

To the unlikely-
How to escape a swarm of pigeons
How to jump out of a train
How to survive a zombie attack

and even some historical Worst Case Scenarios like
How to survive being thrown to lions

Small tips for an easier life such as a list of ingredient substitutions for cooking, and how to find inner peace are also included.

There are also regional suggestions. Someone in Florida might not need to know how to get someone's tongue off a frozen pole or how to hopefully avoid a bear attack, but they are more likely to need to know how to survive a flash flood than I am.

Some of the tips and suggestions are more adult in nature. My daughter is 17 and tends to skip that sort of thing anyway, but you'll find tips on surviving a scandal if you're a politician and other adult situations in this book which make it better suited for more mature readers.

This books is a lot of fun, with a mix of helpful tips and ideas and things that will just amuse you greatly. The sections separated by setting and type of issue. There is a good table of contents to find what you are looking for, and the sheer scope of this is too much to cover in a few hundred words. It's a great gift, a good coffee table book and a good source for conversational material.
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A couple of years ago I posted a tutorial for a handsewn Alice band headband. Notice in the photo, my daughter is reading a previous book in this series! It's an ongoing love for her.

Published by Chronicle Books- Like Chronicle Books on FB!

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Book Review: Craft-A-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Quick note from me: I post my reviews from this site and the bead site to Amazon, as well as reviewing a lot of other things there. The last week I've been at 898 reviews, then today reviewed a set knitting needles to bring it up to 899 so this could be my 900th review. Simply because for that personal milestone, I wanted to review something truly special. This was it.

Craft-A-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt lives up to it's title. The projects are simple. They don't take a big investment in time or materials. They fit into busy lives well, and are ideal for craft parties or crafting with young people.

It's a lovely book, the projects are very well photographed, not crammed all together on the pages, at 426 full color pages, each project gets it's own page with well written instructions. They are charming and put me in mind of zakka type crafts from Japan, which makes sense. A lot of the zakka craft movement is inspired by Scandinavian crafts and the author of this volume draws a lot of her inspiration from the same background. Simple shapes, bright folk colors and easy techniques done well make simple projects. The style is a clean, bright appealing look. Or if I can stop being a grown up for a minute-It's so cute! I lovelovelovelove the projects in this book.

She breaks down the year into weeks, and each week has a theme. Some of the themes are shapes, and she does clever things with just circles or squares. But a lot more of them are things. Animals, flowers, rainbows, mustaches, ghosts and trees for example. 52 weeks to the year, so 52 different themes. The projects come with complete instructions and templates you can trace or copy for patterns. For the sake of simplicity, the projects use similar construction methods which make it easy, you could work through this whole book in an hour or less a day every day for a year.

The projects are very simple, and great for all level of crafters. Like I said above, it would be a great book to pick a project for a craft themed party with friends, or an evening with a young person. It's also got great quick projects that make fast gifts. Hand stitched felt stuffies, lots of cupcake toppers, card making projects, wall decor projects and jewelry projects. I didn't see a single project in the book that would cost more than 5 dollars to make, and since most of the projects use small amounts of materials, that 5 dollars would cover making a few of each. The projects are really cute, handmade looking, and charming. It's very current and DIY trendy.

I have a friend who was telling me recently that she can't craft. I'm personally going to recommend this book to her. I'm also recommending this to a friend with a crafty daughter, I think they would enjoy this a lot together.

Published by Quirk Books.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, my reviews are always my personal and honest opinion. You can read more about my review policy here.

Crochet Pattern- Bookmark Bracelets

When I was a teenager, I used to keep my place in paperbacks with rubber bands. When I was reading, I'd loop them around my wrist then slide them over the pages and around the spine of the book when I wasn't. These are a bit prettier than that, but they work the same way. The little crocheted motif goes into the loop to close it around your wrist while you're reading, then you can just slide it into your book when you're done. It's a good stashbuster thread project, easily adaptable to any really small motif. They are small and quick enough that they might make good sellers for craft shows and bazaars as well.

You will need:

A small amount of size 10 crochet cotton

size 6 steel hook (1.8 mm, I used Boye brand)

scissors

needle to weave in ends

ch= chain

sl st = slip stitch

sc= single crochet

dc= double crochet

tr cr= triple crochet 

American stitch terms used

I never ch 1 and count the first ch as a stitch, I don't like how it looks. So I ch 1 tightly, then work a sc, so that's how the pattern is written. If you prefer ch 1 count as first stitch, do it that way.

The diamond shaped one:

Ch 6, sl st in ring

Round 1: Ch 1, sc in ring 8 times, sl st into first sc to join

Round 2: Ch 1, sc in same stitch, ch 3, skip stitch, sc in next st, ch 5, skip stitch,sc in next stitch, ch 3, sk stitch, sc in next st, ch 3, dc in first sc of round 2 to join. (puts your hook right at the top of the loop)

Round 3: ch 1, 3 sc in loop, sc in next stitch, 5 sc in ch 3 loop, sc in next stitch, 7 sc in ch 5 loop, sc in next stitch, 5 sc in ch 3 loop, sc in next stitch, 3 sc in first loop, ch 80, sl st into the 21 ch from hook (loop formed), sl st back down the chain, sl st to first sc to join. Break off and weave in ends.

The round one:

Ch 2 or magic loop

Round 1: 6 sc in first ch or in magic loop- sl st to join.

Round 2: ch 8 (counts as first tr cr and ch 4),tr cr in next st,*ch 4, tr cr in next stitch,* repeat ** round, on last loop ch 2, dc in 4th ch of the ch 8.

Round 3:  ch 1, sc in loop 2 times, sk stitch, 5 sc in next loop, sk stitch, 5 sc in next loop, sk stitch, 5 sc in next loop,sk stitch, 5 sc in next loop,sk stitch, 5 sc in next loop,sk stitch, 2 sc in loop, ch 80, sl st into the 21 ch from hook (loop formed), sl st back down the chain, sl st to first sc to join. Break off and weave in ends.

I hope you enjoy this pattern as much as I did. I made a half dozen of them during the Super Bowl.  I think as a teenage bookworm I'd have really preferred these to the rubber bands. 

Book Review- Prairie Girl's Guide to Life

Prairie Girl's Guide to Life: How to Sew a Sampler Quilt & 49 Other Pioneer Projects for the Modern Girl is a lovely book by Jennifer Worick. It's charmingly illustrated and engagingly written.
There are a lot of guides to a back to basics type lifestyle. This is one I enjoyed an awful lot. It's fun to read. The author talks about how much she loved the Little House books, and about rediscovering handicrafts and cooking skills from the past.
Rather than going deeply in depth on any subject, it offers easy projects and recipes to inspire and get women started in a DIY lifestyle. Side notes include sayings and expressions with definitions and examples and are just one more bit of charm in this sweet book.
Quilting, embroidery, candle making,soap making and sewing are all included. As well as how to make the perfect cup of tea and how to cook a turkey or a wonderful rhubarb pie. There is even a brief section on how to flirt!
The book is hardbound and just a bit over pocket sized (meaning a bit bigger than a standard paperback) which makes it an ideal stocking stuffer for preteen to teen girls who are interested in handicrafts and who loved the Little House books, or as a small gift for adult women who just getting interested in that sort of thing.
Since we are getting close to the holidays, I'd like to start a small series of gift ideas, and this book would totally be on that list. It's a too basic for advanced crafters and cooks, but it's so pretty and so much fun to read that I did give it to my daughter.
You can get it from the publisher, Taunton Press

Paper punch pins

When I first envisioned this, I was working on an easy way for my daughter to make pins based for her fandoms that didn't involve me pulling out my button machine and trying to figure out where the cutter to go with it is. After testing the idea with a safety pin, a scrap of card stock from an empty cereal box and a piece of a crossword.. I got inspired to make a few using some of my other punches.

Any circle tag design would work as well. Including the name tags I posted a couple days ago.

Just print out the design, use a 2 inch circle punch to cut them out, and glue to a second 2 inch circle cut from card stock. Great use for using cereal boxes! Then tape a safety pin to the back. If you need to write on the front or color them, do that, then cover with Mod Podge. The crossword puzzle pin was made using this method and a 1 inch circle punch with a tiny size 0 safety pin. 

For the punched pins, I got a little fancier. Using regular pin backs and gluing them in place with a strip of paper. 

Cut two circles of decorative card stock, then punch your design on the color you choose for the top circle. For the apple design, I coated the bottom layer with glue then put on some red glitter. The leaf is cut from a separate piece of green card stock and covered with green glitter and glued into place. The top pink piece has the dots and the apple punched out to show the glitter coated card stock under it. Glue everything into place, put on the pin back, then cover with a couple coats of Mod Podge. The other 2 pins have punched appliqués. The blue and pink one has a second circle cut out of the pink with a 1 inch circle punch, then that has a heart and more dots punched. Put the whole thing together, cover with Mod Podge. The witch pin has the black top layer with a 1 inch circle punch to make the full moon, then I punched the witch from the black and put her in flying across the moon. I put a light sprinkle of silver glitter on the first coat of Mod Podge, then sealed over that when it was dry.

 

Super easy!!! Almost anything you'd do as a circle gift tag can also be done as a pin, or you could even make the pin the gift tag and write a note on the back and sign it then attach it to a gift.

Chocolate Recipe Card Set

There is something about pink and brown together that just suggests chocolate and yumminess. A while back I did a box using the elements in this recipe card set. I saved the elements because I really liked the way they looked together and planned to do something else with them. You can find the box here.
Click on the image for the full sized versions. Print at 100 dpi. One of the cards is a folding card for extra room on a recipe.
I'm going to a bead show today, but when I get home I'm going to type out a very special recipe from my grandma's recipe box with the story behind it.

 

 

Links

First, if you haven't already heard of it elsewhere, Yasmine Surovec from the brilliant A Print a Day blog has a new magazine especially for crafters called Parasol Craft. It's only 2.50 USD, and full of gorgeous things, interviews with artists and pictures of the beautiful things they create, it also comes with some things for scrapbooking, a darling doll project, instructions for creating and using Illustrator brushes with vector files to practice with, and some really lovely embroidery designs. 111 pages of goodness.

Rachel at Instructables has great step by step instructions for making your own panties and bra. Since you make the pattern by using one you have that you kind of like the fit of, you can adjust the fit to be perfect, and unlike some bra projects I've seen on the net, it WILL work for something more than a B cup. Oh how we envy you ladies with the high and perkys! (perkies?)(Umm.. *blushes and waves to the guy in Canada and the guy in Japan* you can ignore that whole last paragraph!)
If you can draft patterns, The Canton of Gleann nam Feòrag Dhuibhe has instructions for making all sorts of garb.
I reposted my pirate eye patch pattern here

This bat mask is a costume all in itself with a gorgeous little black dress. For this? I'd start wearing contact lenses again.
If you are more the Winter Queen type, check out this necklace.