Best Crafts & Hobbies Reference

Through a series of creative and quirky prompts, acclaimed guerilla artist Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in destructive acts — poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting pages with coffee, coloring outside the lines, and more — in order to experience the true creative process. “ Wreck This Journal encourages you to stop fretting about quality and start relishing the artistic process.” —Oprah.com. “I love this book and the playful way that Keri Smith teaches people the act of creating by putting you right on the spot. It is great for inspiration; it gives you tasks that are thought-provoking rather than pages of endless blank lines. “Wreck this Journal makes a great gift for someone who’s going through a stressful time, needs a form of release, or anyone who could use a few minutes of fun.” — Jactionary. “Calling all bookworms and creative doodlers, Wreck This Journal is the perfect book to spruce up your summer. “A conceptual artist and author luring kids into questioning the world and appreciating every smell, texture and mystery in it.” — TIME Magazine.

Through a series of creative and quirky prompts, acclaimed guerilla artist Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in destructive acts — poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting pages with coffee, coloring outside the lines, and more — in order to experience the true creative process. “ Wreck This Journal encourages you to stop fretting about quality and start relishing the artistic process.” —Oprah.com. “I love this book and the playful way that Keri Smith teaches people the act of creating by putting you right on the spot. Wreck This Journal is a fun, interactive book that you will want to work in every day. “Wreck this Journal makes a great gift for someone who's going through a stressful time, needs a form of release, or anyone who could use a few minutes of fun.” — Jactionary. “Calling all bookworms and creative doodlers, Wreck This Journal is the perfect book to spruce up your summer. “A conceptual artist and author luring kids into questioning the world and appreciating every smell, texture and mystery in it.” — TIME Magazine.

Through a series of creative and quirky prompts, acclaimed guerilla artist Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in destructive acts — poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting pages with coffee, coloring outside the lines, and more — in order to experience the true creative process. “ Wreck This Journal encourages you to stop fretting about quality and start relishing the artistic process.” —Oprah.com. “I love this book and the playful way that Keri Smith teaches people the act of creating by putting you right on the spot. Wreck This Journal is a fun, interactive book that you will want to work in every day. “Wreck this Journal makes a great gift for someone who's going through a stressful time, needs a form of release, or anyone who could use a few minutes of fun.” — Jactionary. “Calling all bookworms and creative doodlers, Wreck This Journal is the perfect book to spruce up your summer. “A conceptual artist and author luring kids into questioning the world and appreciating every smell, texture and mystery in it.” — TIME Magazine.

A comprehensive introduction to the tools, equipment, fibers, and yarns used with four-shaft looms, this reference features patterns for 600 different weaves, including twill, zigzag, diamond, herringbone, and block. She is a Guild member of the Association of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers and a founding member of the Braid Society.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE For the first time ever—a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson. He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. An uncommonly intimate portrait, Jim Henson captures all the facets of this American original: the master craftsman who revolutionized the presentation of puppets on television, the savvy businessman whose dealmaking prowess won him a reputation as “the new Walt Disney,” and the creative team leader whose collaborative ethos earned him the undying loyalty of everyone who worked for him. An up-close look at the charmed life of a legend, Jim Henson gives the full measure to a man whose joyful genius transcended age, language, geography, and culture—and continues to beguile audiences worldwide. For the most part, the bulk of the research for this biography was conducted the old-fashioned way: sitting in an archive—in this case, The Jim Henson Company archives in Long Island City, New York—and turning over documents one at a time. I read through Jim’s private diaries, examined handwritten notes—sometimes just scraps of paper with ideas for a character name or a slapdash drawing of a new Muppet—pored through business papers and receipts, and poked through innumerable TV scripts and film proposals, many of which never made it any further than Jim’s carefully typed notes. For the first time, you’ll read about many of these projects, and learn how hard Jim worked to bring programs like The Muppet Show to television. I also had the pleasure of interviewing all five Henson children and his widow, Jane—who passed away earlier this year—as well as countless colleagues, friends, and collaborators. I think you’ll find he’s pretty much exactly as you want him to be: genuinely kind, dazzlingly inspirational, immensely talented and—as Frank Oz said—“delightfully imperfect.” Not bad for a kid from the swamps of Mississippi.

Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England. “Fair warning: It's addictive.” — NPR, “Cosmos & Culture” “In this gorgeous collection, the celebrated Atlas Obscura website is condensed into 480 pages of awe-inspiring destinations. “Odds are you won’t get past three pages without being amazed at something truly strange that you didn’t know existed.” — San Francisco Chronicle. “Richly illustrated, delightfully strange, this compendium of off-beat destinations should spark many adventures, both terrestrial and imaginary.” — Boston Globe. “Whether describing a Canadian museum that showcases world history through shoes, a pet-casket company that will also sell you a unit for your severed limb, a Greek snake festival, or a place in the Canary Islands where inhabitants communicate through whistling, the authors have compiled an enthralling range of oddities. Featuring full-color illustrations, this hefty and gorgeously produced tome will be eagerly pored over by readers of many ages and fans of the original website.”— Booklist (Starred Review). a wonderful browse [for] armchair travelers who enjoyed Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York and Frank Warren’s PostSecret .” — Library Journal. It's the kind of book that makes you want to pack in your workaday life and head out to places you'd never have dreamed of going, to see things you could not even have imagined. “ Atlas Obscura is a joyful antidote to the creeping suspicion that travel these days is little more than a homogenized corporate shopping opportunity. Here are hundreds of surprising, perplexing, mind-blowing, inspiring reasons to travel a day longer and farther off the path. Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or a mouth of hell is!”. —GUILLERMO DEL TORO, filmmaker, Pan’s Labyrinth “ What a strange and wonderful book! Each page reveals some hidden realm—a realm that is frightening, or funny, or magical, or simply mad, but that always leaves the reader in wonder.”. —DAVID GRANN, author of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Be grateful when visiting the Karni Mata Rat Temple if one of the 20,000 venerated rodents runs across your bare foot—it is considered good luck.

With more than 1,800 drawings, diagrams and photos, this authoritative guide encompasses the whole art and craft of woodworking.

After two New York Times bestsellers, Nick Offerman returns with the subject for which he's known best—his incredible real-life woodshop. “ Good Clean Fun has helped me discover new ways to have fun in the shop… If Offerman’s goal is to expose a wider audience to the world of woodworking, he’s hit the nail on the head. “Offerman offers detailed projects, shop tips, and tricks, wider reflections on his career and craftsmanship…Offerman really loves wood.

Kids can sew too! Best of all, this practical, attractive sewing book features finished projects that look like they were actually made by children.

This hardcover book with internal spiral binding is 6.5in x 8in, a perfect size for carpenters and woodworkers to keep near their workbench or toolbox for quick access.The design of this book allows it to lay open flat, which allows for easy and frequent reference, and the interior photographs, illustrations and diagrams, make the learning process simple and fun for beginners, and provides useful tips for more advanced readers.

Kids can sew too! Best of all, this practical, attractive sewing book features finished projects that look like they were actually made by children.

You'll also learn essential building techniques like how to use beams, gears, and connector blocks effectively in your own designs. The EXPLOR3R, a wheeled vehicle that uses sensors to navigate around a room and follow lines The FORMULA EV3 RACE CAR, a streamlined remote-controlled race car ANTY, a six-legged walking creature that adapts its behavior to its surroundings SK3TCHBOT, a robot that lets you play games on the EV3 screen The SNATCH3R, a robotic arm that can autonomously find, grab, lift, and move the infrared beacon LAVA R3X, a humanoid robot that walks and talks. Each chapter contains several short challenges, dubbed "discoveries," which are cleverly accompanied by a legend: whimsical gear wheels represent the estimated amount of building time; tiny Microsoft Windows-esque blocks show the expected level of programming expertise; and a small clock estimates the length of time it should take to solve the challenge. The size, advanced vocabulary, and organization of the book evokes a science or physics textbook, which is warranted due to the amount of complex and detailed programming information contained within.

Selected from the pages of two clever 19th-century picture books, 28 hand-shadow illustrations demonstrate how to create marvelous images of a goose, deer (with antlers), birds, a bunny, a dog, an elephant, a tortoise, and a host of other familiar creatures. Children and adults around the world delight in hand shadows, and this little activity book shows how to perform the ancient art.

The classic bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses*, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age-old question of what the big deal with girls is. Equal parts droll and gorgeous nostalgia book and heartfelt plea for a renewed sense of adventure in the lives of boys and men, Conn and Hal Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys became a mammoth bestseller in the United Kingdom in 2006. Adapted, in moderation, for American customs in this edition (cricket is gone, rugby remains; conkers are out, Navajo Code Talkers in), The Dangerous Book is a guide book for dads as well as their sons, as a reminder of lore and technique that have not yet been completely lost to the digital age. Recall the adventures of Scott of the Antarctic and the Battle of the Somme, relearn how to palm a coin, tan a skin, and, most charmingly, wrap a package in brown paper and string. The book's ambitions are both modest and winningly optimistic: you get the sense that by learning how to place a splint or write in invisible ink, a boy might be prepared for anything, even girls (which warrant a small but wise chapter of their own). Conn taught for many years before becoming one of the most admired and popular young historical novelists with his Emperor series, based on the life of Julius Caesar, and his newly embarked series on Genghis Khan, while Hal is a theater director. Amazon.com: It's difficult to describe what a phenomenon The Dangerous Book for Boys was in the UK last year. They need to fall off things occasionally, or--and this is the important bit--they'll take worse risks on their own. Amazon.com: You made some changes for the U.S. edition, and I for one am sorry that you have removed the section on conkers, if only because it's such a lovely and mysterious word. In the entire history of the world, no one has ever been hurt by a conker, but it's still been banned by some British schools, just in case . I notice in both editions you have an excellent and useful section on table football, as played with coins. As for paper football, ever since I thought of putting the book together, people keep saying things like "You have rockets in there, yes? Have you seen boys getting up from their Xboxes to go outside and perform first aid or tan animal skins or build go-carts? Iggulden: I've had a lot of emails and letters from boys who loved the book--as well as fathers. I've had responses from kids as young as ten and an old man of 87, who pointed out a problem with the shadow stick that we've since changed. If it's hard, you don't make it easy, you grab it by the throat and hang on for as long as it takes. Good, heroic stories don't appear much in modern school curriculums--and then we wonder why boys don't seem interested.

Filled with beautiful photographs and easy-to-follow instructions on how to create over 80 different arrangements, this is the go-to guide to floral design that every flower lover will want to add to their collection. Carly's book takes you from A to Z on everything flowers and helps us amateurs bring out the flower goddess in all of us.― Ali Landry. With everything happening in design, I'm surprised that no one has done what Carly's done and has done so well: taught us the simple mysteries of how to arrange flowers beautifully. Whether you've already got flower game or you're just learning about floral design, this book offers you tips and tricks to instantly improve your styling techniques.― Laurie March, remodeler, designer, and TV host. This is my go-to book for floral designing. Carly's passion for teaching floral design comes through effortlessly in The Flower Chef .

For each technique, detailed step-by-step photography captures the subtle, intricate movements that typically fly by too fast to be learned when watching a video lesson; callouts then lead readers to the relevant video on the DVD so they can see the technique demonstrated in real time—an ideal combination that makes learning from the master easy. The in-depth perspective starts with his directions for making simple tools (a wire tool and a sponge stick) and is bolstered by charts and information-packed sidebars (e.g., for removing air bubbles and troubleshooting your first pull). Third-generation potter Leach, with technical and photographic assistance from Bruce Dehnert and Jared Flood, capitalizes on his celebrity with an amazingly detailed, step-by-step text for all major processes in ceramics.

With information gleaned from years of working for and studying with professional mosaic artists from around the world, this comprehensive guide provides essential information for creating beautiful mosaics that survive the elements and stand the test of time. *Starred Review* Home in on the last two words of artist-maven Fitzgerald’s title: Trade Secrets.

With hundreds of detailed photos, this book covers tools and supplies, bead stringing and weaving, wire wrapping, and more. Detailed color photos demonstrate each step.

From Erin Benzakein, a leader in the locaflor farm-to-centerpiece movement and owner of internationally renowned Floret Flower Farm, Cut Flower Garden is equal parts instruction and inspiration—a book overflowing with lush photography of magnificent flowers and breathtaking arrangements organized by season. "I met Erin Benzakein more than ten years ago when she was a young mom growing sweet peas and dreaming of making her living from flowers. And now she's sharing that dream with the world - everyone from fellow flower enthusiasts to emerging farmer-florists to veteran designers yearning for a new, seasonal and sustainable model of floristry. In her debut book she not only introduces us to the basics of growing our own flowers, she shares her deep love and understanding of gardening in a way that will leave even the most doubtful grower feeling inspired to get their hands in the dirt." Her first book is deliciously gorgeous and incredibly comprehensive- combining practical advice alongside a huge overdose of seasonal inspiration. Erin Benzakein's gorgeous new book, Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden, is equal parts inspiration and education. "The creation of this beautiful book is testament to Erin Benzakein's commitment to and passion for the local flower movement. The layout is simultaneously appealing and practical; Floret's signature lush photographs beautifully illustrate all stages of cut flower production and design through the seasons. Filled with clear growing techniques, detailed harvesting instructions and other tips of the trade, this book is a true gift to anyone wanting to generate good income from the craft of flower farming on a small-scale.

Kids love origami—and what could be cooler than transforming a piece of paper into Boba Fett, Princess Leia, Yoda, or R2-D2? Star Wars Origami includes a foreword by Tom Angleberger, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and Darth Paper Strikes Back , and is scheduled to be published at the same time as Angleberger’s upcoming book, The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee . A Look Inside Star Wars Origami.

The first complete guide to collecting, identifying, and understanding the history behind smooth glass shards found at the water's edge. Pure Sea Glass assists the collector in playing detective using subtle clues regarding color and shape to identify the possible source of sea glass shards, their age, rarity, and historical significance.

Cook up some science in your home with Kitchen Science Lab for Kids . Kitchen Science Lab for Kids offers 52 fun science activities for families to do together. Soon she found herself sharing her love of science with her three kids as they grew, journaling their science adventures on her KitchenPantryScientist website.

Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, The Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions. In the late 1960's, Eliot Wigginton and his students created the magazine Foxfire in an effort to record and preserve the traditional folk culture of the Southern Appalachians.

The pure luxury of soaps made with coconut butter, almond oil, aloe vera, oatmeal, and green tea is one of life’s little pleasures. “This book has everything you need for success.

From the author of the popular blog, A Cozy Kitchen, comes a beautifully photographed one-stop-shop book with all the recipes and projects you’ll need for some cozy inspiration this holiday season―and all year long. You'll want to sink right into her cozy world-why not plan a fall picnic, make Chewy Chai Snickerdoodles, and adopt a best friend corgi named Amelia? Adrianna's clear and friendly voice chats with you as if you're a dear friend, offering tips on DIY crafts and recipes you'll actually want to make. “If L.A. blogger, dog-lover, and yummy food maker Adrianna Adarme isn't already on your radar, it's time to get acquainted….An ordinary book of recipes, this is not. Not only are there cozy and comforting recipes, but the book is also filled with crafts and outings and life inspiration.

The updated easy-to-learn reference for rough carpentry and framing Complete Book of Framing, Second Edition is an updated, easy-to-learn guide to rough carpentry and framing written by an expert with more than thirty years of framing experience. Complete Book of Framing, Second Edition is an updated, easy-to-use guide to rough carpentry and framing written by an expert with more than thirty years of framing experience. This Second Edition is updated to match the framing techniques of the 2009 International Building Code and introduces the concept of "green framing" with regard to material use and handling.

From this simple technique, however, crafters can create limitless variety through the way they shape the coils, dye the needles, vary stitches, embellish with beads and seeds, and incorporate leather and wood. Pine needles have become raw materials for baskets because they were a widely available, renewable resource.

Organize and preserve your tickets from special concerts, shows, trips, and sporting events in this handsome ticket stub organizer!

Written by an expert in blacksmith and metal artist, this book provides readers with a basic understanding of blacksmithing, including an explanation of tools like an anvil, an anvil stand, hammers, and tongs. Through instructions and illustrations, readers will learn to make simple tools and useful items, such as nails, hinges, and handles, and also an interesting mix of artful projects, such letter openers, door knockers and botanical ornaments.

Upgrading to a General license--which conveys extensive HF privileges only requires passing a written examination. Once you do, the entire range of operating modes and the majority of the amateur spectrum below 30 MHz become available to you. Use this book to study for your General Class license exam. Every page presents information you will need to pass the exam and become an effective operator.

The pure luxury of soaps made with coconut butter, almond oil, aloe vera, oatmeal, and green tea is one of life’s little pleasures. “This book has everything you need for success.

144 new pages for a grand total of 528 pages of pure Smith & Wesson 14 new revolver models added since last edition Dozens of new variations of the M&P pistol New S&W rifles and shotguns, including many new M&P 15 rifles Hundreds of detailed, full-color photos Smith & Wesson gun values and collector information. Jim Supica is Director of NRA Museums.