Craft Techniques & Projects by DK Publishing

DK is celebrating Spring Break with its "Time to Play" promotion. This week I'll be featuring three books from their Time to Play boutique. If spring break has already passed in your area, these books can be used for family time or other times when the kids need something to do. Click here or on the photo on the left to see some other books.





Craft Techniques and Projects offers more than 50 contemporary projects, which can be done at home using different mediums and tools.

I loved this book. There's such a variety of projects it's hard to choose which to do first. So many of the projects gave me ideas for other projects. It was so inspiring. I could really get carried away with this book.

The projects are separated into 6 groups: Textiles, Papercrafts, Jewelry, Ceramics and Glass, Candles and Soaps, and Eco Crafts. I've dabbled in many of these, which is great because I'm always looking for new projects to do. I especially love the Eco Craft section: turning trash into treasures. It's better than the landfill, right?

Each chapter starts with an introduction followed by tools and materials needed for the various techniques and projects in that section. There are plenty of photographs and labels so the reader/crafter will know exactly what to look for when they go shopping.

The rest of the chapter is devoted to techniques and projects. For the techniques, the book shows the steps with photos and explanations. Each technique is followed by a project, so that the reader/crafter can practice the technique shown. The projects are nicely laid out with a list of materials needed, step-by-step photographs and explanations, as well as a large photograph of the finished project. The back of the book contains templates for several of the projects.

There are a few projects I loved, but will probably never make. The sparkly tiara (page 164-165) is adorable. If I had a little girl, I'd make her one of these so she could feel like a princess each time she wore it. It doesn't say it's for little girls, but I don't go to any fancy parties where a tiara is mandatory or even appropriate. It's still a gorgeous accessory, though. I might use the technique on another piece of jewelry.

For the purposes of this review, I made one of the projects from the book. For details and photos, please see below. I was hoping to do at least one more, but in the interest of time I decided to stick with this one for now because I had all of the materials and tools.

Other projects I'm hoping to do in the next little while:
Flowerpots (mosaic, pages 216-217)
Trivet (mosaic, pages 218-219)
Eggshell Picture Frame (eco-craft/mosaic, page 282-283)
Tin Can Lanterns (eco-craft, page 290-291)

The back of the book lists the authors of the various crafts along with their websites. There's also a list of resources for supplies.

The table of contents lists the major sections along with the techniques used in the book. However, it doesn't list the projects. I found this a little odd. The index is ok, but I didn't find what I was looking for right away. It took a little deducing and hunting before I found it.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

Craft Techniques and Projects by DK Publishing, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2012. ISBN 9780756692704(Hardcover), 320p.

My project

I love making homemade cards, but haven't tried a pop-up one yet. So I decided to try the Pop-Up Card (page 136-137). This was such a fun project to do. The instructions were fairly straightforward and easy to follow so the project didn't take that long to complete. I'm really happy with how it turned out, with one exception. It looks good when it's open, but when I close the card part of the cake sticks out of the card. I thought my measurements were right, but perhaps they were out just a little. Now that I've learned the technique of making pop-up cards, I can make more. I'll be sure to double check my measurements. ;)

Here's the front view:

...and the side view: