Book Review: Creative Marker Art & Beyond

I'm finishing my Book Week with a lovely crafty book: Creative Marker Art and Beyond: inspiring tips, techniques, and projects for creating vibrant artwork in marker, by Lee Foster-Wilson of Bonbi Forest.

 

A couple of years ago Lee took part in the 100 Day Project, setting herself the challenge of doing a marker pen drawing a day, picking the pens at random to force herself to try new colour combinations and make the most of her pen stash.

During the project she learned loads about working with markers and totally fell in love with them as a medium... and now she's written a book to share her top tips and get us all inspired to get doodling.

 

The book starts with a quick introduction to the different types of marker pens available (permanent markers, paint markers, metallic markers, brush markers, and more), the basics of colour theory and some useful drawing techniques like crosshatching and stippling.

The rest of the book is made up of Creativity Prompts (e.g. drawing from nature), Marker Exercises (e.g. simplifying your sketches to create stylised motifs), and Step-by-Step Projects (e.g. decorating rocks with your drawings). This mix makes the book part creative workbook with ideas to spark your creativity and blank pages for you to get doodling straight away, and part how-to guide with projects that you can either recreate or use as inspiration for your own makes.

 

There are ten sections in the book, each with a creativity prompt, marker exercise and step-by-step project - some loosely connected, some directly following on from each other (for example, in one section you try hand lettering, then try out ideas for embellished lettering, then decorate a notebook using lettering to create a personalised design).

As you work through the book you'll learn lots of different ways to use markers, including some fab ideas for using markers which are drying out and starting to fade (which you'd normally just throw away). The project ideas are also all lovely, and are great examples of the versatility of markers and the many different surfaces you can decorate them.

 

I would have liked a bit more detail in some of the step-by-step tutorials, as there are a couple of points where the instructions are not as clear as they could be. For example, there's a fabric banner project where you need "primed fabric in a banner shape of your choice" but it's not explained how you're supposed to "prime" your fabric, or with what.

I also would have loved a section with patterns and motifs to trace, so we could recreate the projects show in the book exactly - because they're a lot nicer than most of my doodles!

It's also worth noting that to make the projects in the book you will need quite a wide range of different markers (standard permanent markers, fine liners for detail, brush markers for layering colours, and paint markers for drawing on glass and rocks) as the different types of pens write on different surfaces and behave in different ways. You could use a lot of the drawing techniques to get doodling with a basic pack of markers, but many of the cool project ideas do require fancier pens.

I think you would almost definitely want to buy more pens after buying this book, though! Lee's enthusiasm for markers is pretty infectious and she's done a great job of showing how versatile they can be, and how many lovely things you can draw and make with them.

If you want a detailed book of drawing techniques, or a book with patterns where you can make the exact project shown in the book then this is not the book for you. However, if you've got a neglected pack of markers in a drawer somewhere (or you've always been tempted by those big packs of different colours you get in stationery shops but never knew what do with them) and want to flex your creative muscles a bit and get doodling, then this book could be the start of your very own love affair with marker art.

Creative Marker Art and Beyond: inspiring tips, techniques, and projects for creating vibrant artwork in marker is published by Walter Foster Publishing. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other websites and bookshops.

I received a free review copy of this book from the publishers. Please note that the Amazon and Book Depository links in this blog post are affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase I get a tiny percentage for the referral. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps support my blog.

P.S. The Mandalas to Embroider giveaway ends on 10th May, have you entered yet?

P.P.S. Visit my book reviews archive for a look at lots more crafty books!

Book Review: Craft a Life You Love

My Book Week continues today with a look at Craft a Life You Love: infusing creativity, fun & intention into your everyday by Amy Tan, aka Amy Tangerine.

Amy self-published Craft a Life You Love last year, and this revised and expanded edition has now been published by Abrams Books. This isn't a "how to" craft book or a "grow your creative business!" book, but is instead essentially a self-help book for people with creative hobbies.

It's about how to find the time and motivation to fit more creative projects into your schedule, and how crafting and creativity can enrich our lives and make us happier. Beyond this, Amy (who seems like an incredibly upbeat, positive person) explores ways in which we can take control of our lives to create "a life you love": being more positive, learning to love ourselves (with all our quirks), and focusing on our priorities and goals.

 

The book is divided into six themed chapters with titles like "Crafting the Soul" and "Crafting Happiness through Habits", then sub-divided into 28 smaller sections. Each section begins with a memoir-like story from Amy's life showing something she's learned, or how she makes use of a certain habit or attitude in her everyday life, and ends with an exercise for you to follow to put the ideas from that section into action.

Most of the exercises involve written prompts for you to think about and respond to, with space for you to write down your responses. For example, there are pages to fill out tracking your daily tasks and how happy they make you, an exercise in rewriting negative thoughts into positive ones, and a list of prompts like "who is someone who gives me tremendous energy and why?" and "what does a perfect day look like?" to get you started on a daily journalling habit.

 

Early on in the book there's also a "permission slip" to sign (to give yourself permission to take time for your hobby to feed your soul) - Amy really believes in the power of writing stuff down!

Because of the workbook-like nature of this book, I'm not sure if this book would be great value if you're not the sort of person who is actually going to sit down and do the exercises suggested. Reading the book from cover-to-cover (which I did, for this review) without following any of the prompts doesn't take that long and you, naturally, skip a lot of blank pages along the way.

 

There's some good, practical advice in here, but some of the stuff about "synchronicity" between Amy and the "naturally benevolent" Universe made me raise my eyebrows and make little frowny faces while reading, and there are a few all-caps comments in my notes like "THIS IS NOT A SIGN FROM THE UNIVERSE, IT'S JUST A COINCIDENCE!!!". I am honestly not sure that I have ever read a self-help book in my entire life that didn't cause me to have a few raised-eyebrow moments, though! I am quite cynical at heart (or maybe just British???) and I think I just reach a tipping point where the self-help speak gets a bit much and my internal commentary goes a bit shouty.

At the end of the day, this stuff doesn't make the good advice less good, or the practical tips less useful. Craft a Life You Love might have given me a few shouty all-caps moments, but I also wrote a whole bunch of positive notes while reading and have been thinking a lot about some of the advice in the book.

Overall, I think this would be a great book to work through if you have trouble with confidence (not just creative confidence) and struggle to carve out time for your creative hobbies or other things in your life that bring you joy. I'd also recommend it to people who are feeling a bit "stuck" in their lives and daily routines: you don't have to keep feeling that way, and Craft a Life You Love has a lot of simple but useful tips for making small changes in your thinking and your habits to help you live your best life.

Craft a Life You Love: infusing creativity, fun & intention into your everyday is published by Abrams books. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other websites and bookshops.

I received a free review copy of this book from the publishers. Please note that the Amazon and Book Depository links in this blog post are affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase I get a tiny percentage for the referral. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps support my blog.

P.S. Make sure you check out this week's giveaway - click here to read my review of Mandalas to Embroider, and for your chance to win a copy!

Visit my book reviews archive for a look at lots more crafty books! 

Book Review & Giveaway: Mandalas to Embroider

As promised, this week is Book Week!

The first book I'm looking at is the very lovely Mandalas to Embroider: Kaleidoscope Stitching in a Hoop, by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Polka & Bloom.

It can be a teeny bit awkward when a friend asks you to review their book - I mean, what if you don't like it? What if you think it's rubbish??? I didn't have to worry at all about reviewing this book, though, as I knew Carina was going to knock it out of the park.

Mandalas to Embroider contains 24 meditative, mandala-inspired embroidery designs. As well as being nice to look at, the idea is that you can lose yourself in the relaxing process of stitching the pretty, geometric designs.

There are 12 large designs (sized to fit perfectly in 6 inch embroidery hoops) and 12 small designs, which you can use as decorative motifs on other sewing projects or frame in mini Dandelyne hoops (if you've not heard of these, they're fab mini embroidery-hoop style frames perfect for making embroidered necklaces and other jewellery).

At the start of the book you'll find comprehensive guides to the tools and stitches you'll need to complete the designs in the book, as well as tips on working with embroidery hoops.

Each project is shown fully stitched in Carina's bright and cheerful colour palettes, with a full-colour version of the pattern and a list of suggested DMC embroidery thread colours so you can replicate the design exactly if you want.

Aren't they fabulous?

Finally at the back of the book you'll find the patterns themselves. This is one of the things that makes this book so great: these aren't patterns printed on book pages that you'll need to photocopy and tape to a window to trace (though you can do that, of course), they're actually embroidery transfer sheets! You just tear out the page along the perforation and follow the instructions to use an iron to transfer the design to your fabric.

Apparently the sheets can be used up to 10 times, then after that you can photocopy them. There's even a pocket built into the back cover of the book for you to tuck the transfers so you don't lose them, which is very helpful (I am forever forgetting what "safe place" I've put paper patterns in!).

I really love this book, and (gushing friendship moment) I'm really proud of Carina for designing it, she is so talented and her use of colour is always such a joy.

If I'm honest, I'm not sure I'd ever stitch the small designs (I don't wear a lot of jewellery, and I much prefer the intricacy of the larger designs), but the large ones are so nice and the iron-on transfer sheets so easy to use that I think this book would be a great value purchase even if you only wanted to stitch a few of them.

Mandalas to Embroider: Kaleidoscope Stitching in a Hoop, is published by Search Press. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other websites and bookshops. You can also buy signed copies direct from Carina's website.

Please note that the Amazon and Book Depository links in this blog post are affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase I get a tiny percentage for the referral. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps support my blog. 

Visit my book reviews archive for a look at lots more crafty books! 

The lovely people at Search Press sent me a free copy of this book to review (thanks, guys!) and have another copy for me to give away - hurrah! 

Just leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win!

Leave your comment before 10pm (UK time) on Thursday 10th May. I'll then contact the winner and pass their info along so the book can be posted to them by the team at Search Press.

Please make sure you leave a blog link, Twitter/Instagram/Etsy username (no locked accounts, please, I need to be able to contact you), or email address in your comment so I can get in touch if you're the winner. This giveaway is open worldwide. Yay!

If I'm unable to contact the winner within a week, I will pick someone else. If you're leaving a comment with your Blogger profile, please remember that you need to have your profile set to public & to have a contact email visible for me to be able to get in touch with you.

UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed. 

Next Week is Book Week!

Next week's blog posts are gonna be all about craft books. Specifically this trio of colourful, creative books:

On Monday I'll be reviewing Mandalas to Embroider: Kaleidoscope Stitching in a Hoop, by Carina Envoldsen-Harris. You'll get a chance to win your own copy of the book, too! (Yay!)

On Wednesday I'll be reviewing Craft a Life You Love: Infusing Creativity, Fun & Intention into your Everyday by Amy Tangerine.

Then on Friday I'll be looking at Creative Marker Art and Beyond: Inspiring Tips, Techniques & Projects for Creative Vibrant Artwork in Marker by Lee Foster-Wilson.

See you next week! :)


P.S. Just to let you know: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase I get a tiny percentage for the referral. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps support my blog.

Giveaway: Made by Yourself

As I mentioned yesterday, I've got a copy of Made by Yourself to give away to one lucky reader!

Please note: this giveaway is only open to people who live in the UK and Ireland.

Just leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win. Leave your comment before 10pm on Sunday 4th May, and I'll pick the winner at random on Monday 5th May. I'll then pass the winner's details to the publishers so they can send out the copy of the book.

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

If I'm unable to contact the winner within a week, I will pick someone else. If you're leaving a comment with your Blogger profile, please remember that you need to have your profile set to public & to have a contact email visible for me to be able to get in touch with you.

UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed.

Made by Yourself is published by Jacqui Small. RRP £18.00. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

Please note: The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Book Review: Made by Yourself

The final book I'm reviewing for Book Week is... Made by Yourself: 100% Handmade Designer DIY Projects for the Home, from Furniture to Accessories by Peter Fehrentz.

This is a super-stylish hardback filled with 48 projects. The photos and styling are all great (& all done by Peter himself) and check out that yummy neon yellow spine!

Each project is rated by difficulty and cost, from 1 (easy / cheap) to 6 (difficult / expensive) and Peter has also provided an estimated time for each project.

As somone who is a bit of a novice when it comes to home DIY stuff I was pleased to see lots of projects rated 1 or 2 for difficulty. However, each project only includes quite short text instructions (with just a couple of diagrams in the book) so some knowledge of the materials you're using are required. I definitely wouldn't be able to tackle the level 1 woodworking projects with the same confidence as the projects involving card, fabric, paint, etc.

At the back of the book there's a "credits" section, noting where all the materials and photo-props can be found, and a general stockists list. It's great to know exactly which bits of IKEA furniture Peter has decorated or used as props, but the other stockists are a bit pointless as they're all based in Germany (where the book was originally published) and I'm not sure that many people buying the UK edition would go that far to shop for DIY supplies.

The projects are divided by material...

... and the projects include mirrors, decorative accessories, trays, lighting, tables, candle holders, chairs and more.

If I'm honest there are lots of things in here which look awesome but which I am never ever going to make in a million years, either because I know my making-skills aren't up to it or the materials/tools needed are quite specialist (cutting glass to make a chandelier and turning a quartzite slab into a tray = not the DIY projects for me)... or just because they're a bit too "I've got a minimalist loft sparsely decorated with chic statement pieces" for my taste in home-decor (minimal and chic are words no-one is ever going to use about anywhere I live).

But oh my goodness there so many things in here I really want in my house!

It was hard to just pick a few examples to share with you guys but I especially loved this malachite-effect table (swoon)...

 

... these faux-metal letters...

 

... these fun cardboard "vases"...

 

... and this cushion cover (which is decorated with leather pieces but which I am, of course, imagining made with pieces of wool felt).

If you ooh over chic design blogs and fancy trying your hand at some creative, inspirational projects you'll find lots to love in this book... and the more confident and ambitious you are when it comes to DIY the more you'll be able to make from it.

And - great news - I've got a copy to give away! Check back tomorrow for the giveaway :)

Made by Yourself is published by Jacqui Small. RRP £18.00. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

Please note: I was sent a free review copy of this book. The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Book Review: Felt Fantastic

It wouldn't be a proper Book Week on my (felt-obsessed) blog without at least one book dedicated to felt crafting! :)

So, today I'm reviewing Felt Fantastic by Sarah Tremelling & Morven Jones.

Sarah is the lovely lady who runs Blooming Felt, a shop name you probably recognise as one of my current blog sponsors. I've known Sarah vaguely for years as we were in the same biz (selling felt) for many years and you may remember that we met up earlier this spring for a fab day out in London.

Blooming Felt specialise in wool felt, selling (among other things) those lovely thick handmade felt sheets and shapes, and lots of colourful felt balls/beads. I have to confess that I tend to oooh over these sort of supplies but to not really know what to do with them. I'm so used to just working with thin craft felt, and these chunky shapes are such a different material!

So I was really interested to see this book and to get some inspiration for ways I could use the handmade felt supplies in my stash.

Felt Fantastic contains 26 projects that use a mix of felt sheets, shapes and felt beads... plus other supplies like seed beads, colourful buttons and embroidery floss. They're divided into 4 chapters: Cute for Kids, For the Home, Easy Accessories and Festive Fun.

Some of the projects include more than one design, like the set of of animal masks and this selection of brooches:

 

All the projects have step by step instructions and sketch-like illustrations to guide you. There are also lots of "further felty ideas" included with suggested variations for each project, which is great. The templates are dotted throughout the book instead of being in one section at the back and most of them do need enlarging, which is a bit of a shame.

The emphasis throughout Felt Fantastic is on fun, colourful, easy-to-make projects (many of which you can make even more quickly by using craft glue instead of sewing). This is crafting as a fun afternoon project, maybe to make with your kids or just to get a quick crafty fix and have a finished piece at the end of it instead of working for hours and hours doing detailed handstitching.

I love the rainbow felt scrap wreath on the front cover (maybe I should try something like that with my own felt scraps?), the colourful coasters made with rows of felt beads and the cupcake-style trinket pots.

There are projects that really make the most of the thickness of the felt, like these trinket boxes:

And others which you could easily adapt and make with ordinary craft felt, like this charming beehive sewing set:

My favourite project has to be the joyful gingerbread house, decorated with buttons and felt beads. This looks like it would be so much fun to make!

This book would be great for beginner crafters, people crafting with kids, anyone who likes their crafting to be quick and simple so they can squeeze it into a spare hour here and there... or someone who (like me!) has a whole bunch of felt beads and handmade felt that they don't know what to do with.

Felt Fantastic is published by David & Charles. RRP £12.99. It's available from Stitch Craft Create, Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

Please note: I was sent a free review copy of this book. Blooming Felt are one of my current blog sponsors but I wasn't paid to write this review and am always honest in my book reviews! The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Book Review: Simple Knitting

Book week continues today with a review of a knitting book...

Simple Knitting: 30 Quick-to-Knit Projects for Stylish Accessories by Ros Badger is one of the books in the "Creative Makers" series that also includes Simple Sewing and Simple Crochet (click the links to read my reviews of those titles). Each book in the series has a different colour spine and they look great sitting together on my bookshelves.

Like the others in the series it's a lovely hardback book with yummy matte paper pages and nice little details like these bicycles at the top of the pages...

Simple Knitting begins with some clear step by step photos showing the different knitting techniques used in the book - I love it when knitting books include photos like this, I find them so much easier to follow than illustrations. It would have been great to have an illustration or two for the bag that needs lining (especially as there is plenty of space on the page) but it's just one project. All the designs are labelled with a difficulty rating - starting out, going further and moving on.

Oh, and there are some some nice photos of yarn dotted throughout the book! Mmm... yarn...
 

The designs are divided into chapters by type: Wrap Up Warm (scarves), Heads You Win (hats and an earwarmer/headband), Fingers and Toes (gloves, mittens and slippers), Pretty Please (quick projects that are good to give as gifts, like little flower hair clips) and Carry Me (bags and purses plus a coffee cosy and a dog coat).

 

Ros introduces each project, chatting about her inspiration and suggesting ways you can vary the design (by using different yarns, etc). Some of the designs are inspired by vintage patterns and consequently have a pretty, retro feel to them like this bow scarf:

None of the designs feel super-trendy, they're more what I'd call "modern classics". Practical and simple but without being boring or old-fashioned.

As with most knitting books there are lots of patterns that I'd never make for myself but which would be nice to knit as gifts, but I also found lots in here that I would keep for myself, including this knitted headband...

... this hat...

... and these mittens.

As a not-especially-skilled knitted I was also pleased to see a nice range of projects that look like something I could actually achieve! Woohoo!

This is not a book for fans of super-fashionable, ultra-trendy designs or for anyone after quirky or cute projects, but it is a book that successfully "does what it says on the tin": simple, stylish, quick-to-knit accessories.

Simple Knitting is published by Mitchell Beazley. RRP £16.99. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

Please note: I was sent a free review copy of this book. The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Book Review: Handprint and make your own Bags

Today I'm reviewing Handprint and make your own Bags by Jenny McCabe.

I met Jenny at the Renegade Craft Fair last year (where she was selling some of her lovely handprinted textiles) and said I felt terribly guilty for having not yet reviewed her book on my blog... and here I am, months later, just getting around to it! Tsk tsk.

Handprint and make your own Bags begins with a short guide to "design and inspiration" (designing your own fabric prints) and then has 6 pages of printing techniques: potato printing, lino printing, erasers, foam sheets, stencils, screenprints, photo transfers, leaf printing, sun prints... plus Jenny's top 10 printing tips.

As you might guess from the number of techniques squeezed into 6 pages this is not a super detailed guide to printing your own fabric but instead a basic introduction to some accessible techniques.
 

 

Then there are 4 pages of motifs - these do need to be enlarged, but it's great to be able to reproduce the exact designs shown in the book.

 

The bulk of the book is devoted to the bag-making, with 35 projects divided by the type of printing used to decorate the fabric: carved block printing, constructed block printing, resist printing, and other printing methods.

All the projects have step by step colour illustrations and there's a short guide to sewing techniques included at the back of the book. The projects are all helpfully marked with a skill level, and the guides are charmingly designed to match the print used for that particular bag. I love seeing nice touches like this in craft books! 

 

Like the motifs, the bag templates do need enlarging (though without a page of pull-out patterns, which is a rare thing to find in a craft book, this is only to be expected when making large projects like bags). There are also a couple of designs included to scan in and print to make photo transfers.

 

Jenny's designs are so lovely, with mostly nature-inspired motifs but also some fun designs like a space invaders pattern for a kid's bag and a stylish cutlery design to print onto a cutlery roll.

As well as the cutlery roll there are a couple of other "non-bag" projects included - coin purses and a wallet - but most of the book is, as you'd expect from the title, all about bag-making. The designs cover a wide mix of shapes, from a bucket-handled shopper, to a messenger bag, to a diaper bag with lots of useful pockets:

I need to get to grips with my sewing machine (after years of just hand stitching) and I'll definitely be getting this book off the shelf when I do - maybe starting with this bag, which looks lovely and super-useful.

Handprint and make your own Bags is a nice, versatile craft book - a simple introduction to printing but also a useful sewing book with lots of bag and purse patterns. Seeing the great results from the simpler printing techniques is especially inspiring - "ooh, I could totally do that!" is a very good feeling to have when looking through a craft book.

Personally though I think I'd want a more detailed guide to the more complex/advanced printing techniques before I felt confident trying them, so maybe this book would be a good one to pair with a book dedicated to printing techniques so you can learn about the more complicated techniques in more detail then use your knowledge to make bags with your awesome printed fabric.

Handprint and make your own Bags is published by CICO Books. RRP £12.99. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

[Disclaimer: CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book. They also publish my books but I am always honest in my reviews! The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links]