Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts: A Stress-Free Journey to Original Design


Rayna Gillman - 2011
    Learn how to trust your instincts so you can work more intuitively, and develop a new appreciation for the therapy of sewing without a plan.

Carve Stamp Play: Designing and Creating Custom Stamps


Julie Fei-Fan Balzer - 2013
    Find your "authentic" design voice and get carving today!

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity


Julia Cameron - 1992
    An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.

Alternacrafts: 20+ Hi-Style Lo-Budget Projects to Make


Jessica Vitkus - 2006
    With an emphasis on recycling, making projects from scratch, and improvisation - as well as detailed, easy-to-understand instructions - this title gives crafters the skills they need to self-express, by shaping their own environments, whether they're working on their bodies, their bedrooms, their lockers at school, or their first apartments.

Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle


Clare Hunter - 2019
    In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the age-old, universal, and underexplored beauty and power of sewing. Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we have to tell our story.

Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing: Fabu-Low-Sew Projects for the Everyday Crafter


Kathy Cano-Murillo - 2009
    She is a thread artist. And in Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing, she'll show how to harness the power of her fearless kamikaze sewing style–just dive in and give it 100 percent. Here you'll not only find out the nuts and bolts of sewing, but learn to have confidence to blaze your own sewing trail with confidence and flair. (And sprinkle of glitter!) The Crafty Chica is here to bring out the thread artist in you. Whether you can hardly sew on a button or are already threading bobbins like a champ, Kathy's got a project just for you. From place mat totes to embellished skirts, Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing proves that you're in charge of your sewing machine, not the other way around. With these 30 fun fabu-low-sew projects to carry, wear, and use around the home, you can leave the ordinary behind and channel your own Crafty Chica within.

A Couple Cooks | Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food


Sonja Overhiser - 2018
    Pretty Simple Cooking was named one of the best vegetarian cookbooks by Epicurious and best healthy cookbooks of 2018 by Mind Body Green.A love story at its finest, Alex and Sonja Overhiser first fell for each other--and then the kitchen. In a matter of months, the writer-photographer duo went from eating fast and frozen food to regularly cooking vegetarian meals from scratch. Together, the two unraveled a "pretty simple" approach to home cooking that kicks the diet in favor of long-term lifestyle changes. While cooking isn't always easy or quick, it can be pretty simple by finding love in the process.A Couple Cooks | Pretty Simple Cooking is an irresistible combination of spirited writing, nourishing recipes with a Mediterranean flair, and vibrant photography. Dubbed a "vegetarian cookbook for non-vegetarians", it's a beautiful book that's food for thought, at the same time providing real food recipes for eating around the table. The book features:100 vegetarian recipes, with 75 vegan and 90 gluten-free optionsA full-color photograph for every recipeRecipes arranged from quickest to more time-consuming10 life lessons for a sustainably healthy approach to cooking, artfully illustrated with a custom watercolor

Collage: Contemporary Artists Hunt and Gather, Cut and Paste, Mash Up and Transform


Danielle Krysa - 2014
    This showcase of cutting-edge contemporary art from across the globe features galleries of collage by 30 practitioners, from the surreal landscapes of Beth Hoeckel to Fabien Souche's humorous appropriations of pop culture. Each artist has also created a new piece especially for this book—all using the same original image, but with results as wildly diverse as the medium of collage itself. This collection is visual inspiration for art lovers and an appreciation of the transformation of old into new.

Sharpie Art Workshop: Techniques and Ideas for Transforming Your World


Timothy Goodman - 2015
    The most comprehensive, step-by-step, hands-on creative workbook for creating art with Sharpie markers.

Organizing Your Craft Space


Jo Packham - 2006
    Inside this spiral-bound guide, with colour-coded pages for easy reference, are hints, tips, and dos and don'ts for each individual craft. There are craft categories so that individual problems are addressed (Mosaic and stained glass, knitting and crocheting, needlepoint and embroidery, scrapbooking and papercrafts, painting, beading, stencilling and rubber stamping, and sewing and fabric crafts). Plus, professional artists invite you into their studios to see how they keep things orderly, from smart storage to functional surfaces.

Knitting New Mittens and Gloves: Warm and Adorn Your Hands in 28 Innovative Ways


Robin Melanson - 2008
    Now this self-described “mitten and glove aficionado” shares her enthusiasm for these ordinary items by presenting 28 extraordinary ways to make them for year-round style.Featuring gloves, mittens, arm warmers, mitts, and fingerless gloves, this is the second book in a new SCT Craft series that introduces innovative approaches to creating popular knitted items. Knitting New Mittens and Gloves combines traditional and untraditional techniques—as well as influences as far-flung as Gothic architecture, Estonian lace, and Wagnerian opera—in a winning collection of patterns for adults and children. From wool mittens filled with unspun fleece and arm warmers with leather laces, to cotton-mesh fingerless gloves and silk-beaded mitts to be worn as adornments, each design has an unexpected twist.Because they are small, quick to make, and don’t require a lot of yarn, mittens and gloves are perfect projects for knitting throughout the year, and they also offer an ideal opportunity for beginning and more seasoned knitters to experiment with new techniques, yarns, and styles. With its fresh, original sensibility, Knitting New Mittens and Gloves will captivate knitters of every level.

Fizz Boom Bath!: Learn to Make Your Own Bath Bombs, Body Scrubs, and More!


Isabel Bercaw - 2018
    Have you ever found yourself staring longingly at a table full of scrumptious-looking bath bombs, shower melts, or lotion bars for sale and thought, “Gee, it would be fun to make these at home, but where the heck would I begin?!” Teenage "sisterpreneurs" and creators of Da Bomb Bath Fizzers are here to take the mystery out of bath and body recipes and give you all the tools you need to crown yourself Archbishop of Bathtopia. Isabel and Caroline will hold your hand every step of the way—and then exfoliate it with some sugar scrub when they're finished! This book will teach you how to create all kinds of delightful, natural, homemade bath treats. Fizzers, scrubs, masks, soaps, bubble bars—Fizz Boom Bath! has you covered.

Kawaii Doodle Class: Sketching Super-Cute Tacos, Sushi, Clouds, Flowers, Monsters, Cosmetics, and More


Zainab Khan - 2017
    Popular kawaii artist Zainab Khan—known for her YouTube channel, Pic Candle—gives you simple step-by-step illustrations and instructions for drawing 75 supercute characters, organized into these fun categories:Adorable Food & DrinksLovable NatureCheerful Doodle MonstersEveryday CuteCharming Holiday DecorationsShe also shares captivating search-and-find puzzles that you can also use as coloring pages, and inspiration boards that show you how to give your characters different facial expressions and zany accessories. If you know Pic Candle, then you already love her cute, simple drawings, and no doubt want to doodle right along with her. Now is your chance! Thanks to this adorable crash course in doodling all things kawaii, soon you will be enhancing your notebooks, stationery, artwork, and anything else you can put a marker to—you'll just need a little help from Kawaii Doodle Class! Also available from Pic Candle’s Kawaii Doodle series, doodle to your heart’s content with:Kawaii Doodle Cuties,Kawaii Doodle World, Mini Kawaii Doodle Class, and Mini Kawaii Doodle Cuties.

Creative Revolution: Personal Transformation through Brave Intuitive Painting


Flora Bowley - 2016
    For author Flora Bowley, making art and expressing herself creatively have always served as potent forms of personal evolution and holistic healing. Creative Revolution is the reader's key to unlocking the door to their own personal journey while making beautiful art.Creative Revolution is the culmination of Flora's life's work as an artist, offering guidance for others to embrace their authentic selves through paint. She has taught more than sixty workshops since she wrote her first book, Brave Intuitive Painting, and has witnessed miraculous things when people engage with the intuitive painting process. Creative Revolution is the next best thing to taking a course from Flora. Many readers and students can't help but exclaim, "This was about so much more than painting!" After reading Creative Revolution, readers will have a deeper connection to their intuition, increased confidence to make bolder choices, freedom to let go and explore various options, an understanding that everything is transformable, the trust that it will all work out in the end, and a renewed sense that creating can be fun and playful. All of this powerful transformation begins with paint. Flora has been writing and reflecting on these transformational aspects of the creative process for years. Creative Revolution is an insightful and practical guide for realizing the transformational power of fully embracing your creativity.

Draw Furries: How to Create Anthropomorphic and Fantasy Animals


Lindsay Cibos - 2009
    From facial expressions to creative coloring, this book contains all the know-how you need to create anthropomorphic cat, dog, horse, rodent and bird characters.Step by step, you'll learn how to:- Draw species-appropriate tails, eyes, wings and other fun details - Give your characters clothes, poses and personalities - Create the perfect backgrounds for your furry antics--with two start-to-finish demonstrations showing howPacked with tons of inspiration--from teeny-bopper bunnies and yorky glamour queens to Ninja squirrels and lion kings--Draw Furries will help you create a world of crazy, cool characters just waiting to burst out of your imagination.