Sunday 24 April 2011

Book Review & Giveaway: Find it, Make it

Regular readers will know I'm a big fan of Clare Youngs - I've reviewed her books Papercrafting in no time and Scandinavian Needlecraft in recent months and loved them both. So I was really interested to see her new kids craft book Find it, Make it.

I don't have kids (or neices or nephews either...) but I grew up making things and tried to judge this book based on whether or not I thought my younger self would have wanted it for Christmas :)


Find it, Make it contains "35 step-by-step projects using found and natural materials". The book starts with a section called "getting ready", about what you'll need for the projects, and at the back there's a useful chart of items to collect on your walks / from your garden.

The projects themselves are divided into "play and display" (a pressed flower picture, letters made from painted twigs, a shell wind chime), "playtime" (twig boats, handmade paper with leaves and flowers in it), "gift ideas and jewellery"(a slate brooch, printed giftwrap, and an amazing ice bowl full of flowers), "colourful characters" and "amazing animals" (herb head flower pots, pinecone bugs, and a sweet pebble owl family).


Each project includes a list of suggested materials, any extra "words of wisdom" about working with or preparing the materials and step-by-step instructions, each of which is illustrated with a how-to photo showing a child doing that step. Any templates needed are included in the back, and are all full size. Very helpfully, child-friendly instructions are also included for how to copy the templates out of the book.


There's a bit of talk in the book about how "green" these projects are, but really I think this is quite an old fashioned (in a good way) craft book - a book to get kids exploring the outdoors to find materials, and then giving them lots of ideas for making fun crafty things with what they find.

You could sneak in a lot of facts about the natural world while working on projects from this book with your kids, and using found materials plus basic crafty supplies like glue and paint and ribbon makes the projects very inexpensive. I think my younger self would have had a lot of fun with this book in the Easter and summer holidays... but as I'm a bit old for it now I'm giving away my review copy, which is a lovely hardback. Hurrah!

Just leave a comment on this blog post for a chance to win. (If you're reading this on my Facebook page please click through to my blog to leave your comment on the original post).

As always, I'm happy to ship internationally, so anyone can enter. Leave your comment before 10pm on Friday 29th April and I'll pick a winner at random on Saturday 30th.

Please make sure you leave a name or pseudonym (no anonymous comments please!) and leave a link or email address so I can contact you.

P.S. there's going to be another crafty giveaway tomorrow :)

Find it, Make it is available from CICO Books, Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

[Disclaimer: CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links]

*** This giveaway is now closed ***

26 comments:

rhian said...

My little girl is just old enough to start simple crafty activities - this book looks like it would be great inspiration!

AliceKiss said...

I am your follower long! I love your blog. I have two children, to whom such a book like)))
http://intheorderofthings.blogspot.com/

eiela said...

great book for children to make a simple craft. they would love this book.

Unknown said...

well i love your review, but I don't want to participate, i'm not even a mom yet, so let it be a chance for all lovely moms here! love your review posts;d!

Sarah said...

oh I love this!
I am a early education teacher AND love to incorporate nature into our school day!

Unknown said...

This book looks fantastic! as a step-mother to 4, there is never enough inspiration! :)
Thank you for this giveaway!

volfima [at] gmail [dot] com

Gillian said...

This looks so sweet - had the Anti-Coloring Book when I was small and loved it! Love children's books!G

Laura Frunza said...

I'd love this for my daughter. Thanx for giving it away! I'll keep my fingers crossed! You can find me at idei_pentru_mamici_si_copii@yahoo.com
Happy Easter!

Teresa @ Aurea's Kitchen said...

I don´t have kids yet but i would love win this book.

talopezvigo@gmail.com

Katie said...

WHAT, I really wish I had known this book existed before I picked my blog name. WHATEVS, I'm in denial.

mommatojoa said...

Wonderful!!!! My son loves crafts!!!

Mum.n.wife.to.jdt@gmail.com

Mikayla said...

i work with children and would love to win this book to share it with them!

Mikayla
mikiroshi@gmail.com

Katie said...

This book sounds awesome. Would be great for my wee man once he's a little older :-)

BFromM said...

This sounds like a great book. My children are always bringing in stuff from the outside to make other stuff. This would give us even more ideas!

Gill said...

I run a nature club at our local primary school and my children would love this!

davybidosa said...

So sweet of you to put this book for a giveaway! i think, my daughter would like this:) and i like the idea of 'find it, make it'

craftymummy said...

Oooh, my kids would love this!!!

Unknown said...

This would be such a wonderful book for my Camp Fire group!

Unknown said...

Ooooh, I'd love to win! Please enter me. Thanks for the chance to win! :) x

Anonymous said...

Woe, recycled crafts, really nice I love to make nice objects of things we usually consider not useful! I don't have kids yet , but I like making crafts with little kids! Thanks for the giveaway!

allYson said...

This looks so so great. It would be perfect for the recycle/reclaim art class I will be volunteer teaching this summer at our local Boys & Girls Club in Carlsbad, CA. We have kids ages 6-13 and we love to find things to make into art. Please pick me :)allyevers@yahoo.com

Glenys said...

Great book! I could recycle while making nice and pretty projects with this.

Scented Sweetpeas said...

My little ones would love this book, please pop me in your virtual hat :-)

Jessica Boling said...

This is great! My three year old daughter is old enough now to do crafts like this. http://jecacreations.blogspot.com

Karen J said...

I work at a playgroup and always need new ideas for creative things for the children to do - please pop my name in your 'hat'.
Thanks for doing this xx

Clare said...

This book sounds great - thanks for the review - I'm sure my children would love it, so please count me in for a chance to win. xx