Air Plants: The Curious World of Tillandsias


Zenaida Sengo - 2014
    Stunning photographs showcase creative ideas for using tillandsias mounted on walls and suspended from the ceiling. You’ll learn how to use the plants in living hair accessories and jewelry and in unique containers, like dishware, leather bowls, and baskets. Six step-by-step projects include a wood mount, a wall hook, lasso-and-hook wiring, a ceramic-frame garden, and three unique terrariums.

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People


Amy Sedaris - 2010
    According to Amy Sedaris, it's often been said that ugly people craft and attractive people have sex. In her new book, Simple Times, she sets the record straight. Demonstrating that crafting is one of life's more pleasurable and constructive leisure activities, Sedaris shows that anyone with a couple of hours to kill and access to pipe cleaners can join the elite society of crafters. You will discover how to make popular crafts, such as: crab-claw roach clips, tinfoil balls, and crepe-paper moccasins, and learn how to: get inspired (Spend time at a Renaissance Fair; Buy fruit, let it get old, and see what shapes it turns into); remember which kind of glue to use with which material (Tacky with Furry, Gummy with Gritty, Paste with Prickly, and always Gloppy with Sandy); create your own craft room and avoid the most common crafting accidents (sawdust fires, feather asphyxia, pine cone lodged in throat); and cook your own edible crafts, from a Crafty Candle Salad to Sugar Skulls, and many more recipes. PLUS whole chapters full of more crafting ideas (Pompom Ringworms! Seashell Toilet Seat Covers!) that will inspire you to create your own hastily constructed obscure d'arts; and much, much more!

Just My Type: A Book about Fonts


Simon Garfield - 2010
    Whether you’re enraged by Ikea’s Verdanagate, want to know what the Beach Boys have in common with easy Jet or why it’s okay to like Comic Sans, Just My Type will have the answer. Learn why using upper case got a New Zealand health worker sacked. Refer to Prince in the Tafkap years as a Dingbat (that works on many levels). Spot where movies get their time periods wrong and don’t be duped by fake posters on eBay. Simon Garfield meets the people behind the typefaces and along the way learns why some fonts – like men – are from Mars and some are from Venus. From type on the high street and album covers, to the print in our homes and offices, Garfield is the font of all types of knowledge.

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities


Amy Stewart - 2009
    In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother). Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

Backyard Orchardist: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit Trees in the Home Garden


Stella Otto - 1993
    The Backyard Orchardist includes help on selecting the best fruit trees and information about each stage of growth and development, along with tips on harvest and storage of the fruit. Those with limited space will learn about growing dwarf fruit trees in containers.Appendices include a fruit-growers monthly calendar, a trouble-shooting guide for reviving ailing trees, and a resource list of nurseries selling fruit trees.

Inspired You: Breathing New Life into Your Heart and Home


Marian Parsons - 2012
    Marian Parsons gets giddy over room makeovers. With a lot of ingenuity, a little bit of effort, and a tight budget, she has transformed her home into a beautiful space and filled her heart with a lot more contentment. Thousands have found inspiration at Marian’s blog, missmustardseed.com , and now she shares dozens of new projects, ideas, and DIY adventures in the pages of Inspired You.Marian will remind you that homes don’t have to be magazine material to be special, comfortable, and inviting. The goal you’re working toward is home. Not a perfect home. Not an “impress the neighbors” home. Just home—one whose walls and rooms tell the story of the family who lives there. Beautiful homes start with inspiration and a willingness to try. So uncover your God-given creativity. Be encouraged, be willing, and be inspired.

Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space


Derek Fell - 2011
    Vertical gardening guarantees a better outcome from the day the trowel hits the soil—by shrinking the amount of "floor" space needed and focusing on climbing plants that are less prone to insects, diseases, and animal pests.Notable author and gardener Derek Fell has tried and tested thousands of varieties of vegetables,flowers, and fruits and recommends the best plants for space-saving vertical gardening. His grow-up,grow-down system also shows which ground-level plants make good companions underneath and alongside climbing plants. Best of all, many of Fell's greatest climbers and mutually beneficial plants are available in seed packets in every local garden center.With a mix of DIY and commercially available string supports, trellises, pergolas, raised beds, skyscraper gardens, and topsy-turvy planters, the vertical garden system reduces work, increases yields, makes harvesting easier, and can be practiced in spaces as small as a container or a one-by-four-foot strip. Vertical Gardening features 100 color photos of the author's own vertical methods and showcases beautiful, troublefree perennials, shrubs, vegetables, annuals, and fruit perfect for this new, rewarding way to garden.

One-Skein Wonders


Judith Durant - 2006
    They really should be used, but for what? Here are 101 original and charming solutions to the perpetual one-skein problem. Contributed by yarn shops across the United States, these patterns include hats, mittens, scarves, bags, socks, baby sweaters, belts, headbands, a cell phone carrier, and even a tea cozy and a set of coasters, each using just a single skein of yarn.With patterns arranged by yarn weight, you'll easily find broad ranges of possibilities for your particular yarn orphans. Each pattern includes the names of the contributing yarn shop and the designer and an image of the completed project.

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)


Stu Campbell - 1975
    The revised and updated edition of the classic guide praised by Library Journal as "a highly successful demystification of an increasingly popular art." The perfect book for a new generation of environmentally aware gardeners.

The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing; Log Cabin Building; Mountain Crafts and Foods; Planting by the Signs; Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing


Eliot Wigginton - 1972
    This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living."

Putting Food By


Janet Greene - 1975
    This new revised edition updates the information and adds several new sections on how to: preserve with less sugar and salt, make better-than-store-bought foods at home, freeze for the microwave, preserve and can for the small family, can and freeze convenience foods, choose the right equipment, and make Christmas presents.

Modern Macrame: 33 Stylish Projects for Your Handmade Home


Emily Katz - 2018
    At the heart of this resurgence is Emily Katz, a lifestyle icon and artist who teaches sold out macrame workshops around the world and creates swoon-worthy aspirational interiors with her custom hand-knotted pieces. Modern Macrame is a stylish, contemporary guide to the traditional art and craft of macrame, including 33 projects, from driftwood wall art and bohemian light fixtures to macrame rugs and headboards. The projects are showcased in easy to follow and photogenic project layouts, guiding both the novice and the more experienced crafter in a highly achievable way. Included with every project are thoughtful lifestyle tips showing how macrame can provide the perfect finishing touch for the modern, well-designed home--whether it's a hundred-year-old farmhouse, a sophisticated loft, or a cozy but stylish rental.

101 Organic Garden Hacks: Eco-friendly Solutions to Improve Any Garden


Shawna Coronado - 2017
    She could be pointing at the garden bench she created from leftover wood posts and a few cinder blocks, or the rows of wine bottles buried soldier-style along a winding pathway, or even the garden soil itself, which is blended by hand from an organic soil recipe she devised. A hack is really just a great idea that's come to life.In 101 Organic Garden Hacks you'll find the top tips, tricks, and solutions Shawna has dreamed up in her career as one of America's most creative gardeners. Some are practical timesavers; others offer clever ways to "upcycle" everyday items in your garden. One characteristic every hack shares is that they are completely organic and unfailingly environmentally friendly. Divided into a dozen different categories for easy reference, each hack is accompanied by a clear photo that shows you exactly how to complete it. If you are looking for resourceful ways to improve your garden and promote green living values right at home, you'll love paging through this fascinating, eye-catching book.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach


Ben Falk - 2013
    The site is a terraced paradise on a hillside in Vermont that would otherwise be overlooked by conventional farmers as unworthy farmland. Falk's wide array of fruit trees, rice paddies(relatively unheard of in the Northeast), ducks, nuts, and earth-inspired buildings is a hopeful image for the future of regenerative agriculture and modern homesteading.The book covers nearly every strategy Falk and his team have been testing at the Whole Systems Research Farm over the past decade, as well as experiments from other sites Falk has designed through his off-farm consulting business. The book includes detailed information on earthworks; gravity-fed water systems; species composition; the site-design process; site management; fuelwood hedge production and processing; human health and nutrient-dense production strategies; rapid topsoil formation and remineralization; agroforestry/silvopasture/grazing; ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation; fertility management; human labor and social-systems aspects; tools/equipment/appropriate technology; and much more, complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings."The Resilient Homestead" is more than just a book of tricks and techniques for regenerative site development, but offers actual working results in living within complex farm-ecosystems based on research from the "great thinkers" in permaculture, and presents a viable home-scale model for an intentional food-producing ecosystem in cold climates, and beyond. Inspiring to would-be homesteaders everywhere, but especially for those who find themselves with "unlikely" farming land, Falk is an inspiration in what can be done by imitating natural systems, and making the most of what we have by re-imagining what's possible. A gorgeous case study for the homestead of the future.

How to Get Dressed: A Costume Designer's Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing


Alison Freer - 2015
    TV and film productions wait for nothing, so her solutions have to work fast. In How to Get Dressed, Alison distills her secrets into a fun, comprehensive style guide focused on rethinking your wardrobe like a fashion expert and making what’s in your closet work for you. She provides real-world advice about everything style-related, including: • Making every garment you own fit better• Mastering closet organization• The undergarments you actually need• The scoop on tailors and which alterations are worth it• Shopping thrift and vintage like a rockstarInstead of repeating boring style “rules,” Alison breaks the rules and gets real about everything from bras to how to deal with inevitable fashion disasters. Including helpful information such as how to skip ironing and the dry cleaners, remove every stain under the sun, and help clueless men get their sartorial acts together, How to Get Dressed has hundreds of insider tips from Alison’s arsenal of tools and expertise.