Crafts & Hobbies

Take up your scrapbooking in a whole new state of mind—and spirit.

When I scrapbook, I feel empowered and connected and hopeful. I feel grateful and content and stimulated. In the process of scrapbooking, I feel the closest to my essential self, and to God.
—from the Introduction

In this imaginative, creative resource, award-winning scrapbook designer Cory Richardson-Lauve leads you on a celebration of the divine connection you can experience through scrapbooking. Weaving her own insights, techniques and artwork with the reflections and layouts of other professional scrapbookers and the wisdom of spiritual thinkers, Richardson-Lauve reveals how this innovative and dynamic craft can become a practice used to deepen and shape your life.

Each chapter includes an original scrapbooking project with dozens of variations—for both cut-and-paste and digital artists, beginning scrapbookers and published designers alike—that helps you explore a theme essential to both your designs and your spirituality.

Quilting is the miracle of giving new life and purpose to fabric scraps. It can rejuvenate your spiritual life too.

We affirm that life is here and now in our quilting and its ability to enable our journey. It is the vehicle for our continuing movement along our lifetime of efforts. Our quilts allow both the goal and the process in one magnificent creation after another. Our quilting generates the perfect combination of faith with action, hope with realism, and the universal with the particular, so that we are blissful and grateful in our co-creation experiences.
—from the Conclusion

What can you learn about yourself through quilt making? What deeper symbolism can you find in the act of cutting and piecing? How can this simple activity help you make your way down a spiritual path?

Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative book that will become your spiritual friend, your teacher and your sanctuary. Contemporary quilter Louise Silk takes you through her own quilting journey to discover how the process of making a quilt can be used to explore and strengthen your own spirituality. Each chapter introduces a universal human attribute organized according to the mystical tradition of Kabbalah, relates it to a personal life practice and then applies the attribute and the practice to an original quilt project.

Anyone from the novice to the needlework expert—and from any faith tradition—will be nourished and gratified by the patchwork and appliqué experiences offered in this creative, engaging book. These ten projects, carefully designed for you, include:

• One-Patch Utility Quilt
• Log Cabin Quilt
• String Pieced Pillows
• Straight Furrows Baby Blanket
• Quilting Carry-all Bag
• Patchwork Prayer Shawl
• Folk Art Appliqué Quilt
• Remembrance Crazy Quilt
• T-shirt Quilt
• Rail Fence Signature Tablecloth
• Plus dozens of variations …

Discover the creativity that lies hidden within you—and express it!

"Painting—because it is such a flexible and adaptable form of art—gives us unparalleled freedom to express what we are feeling. Through colors, forms, lines, even fabrics, we can tap into our deepest emotions and thoughts; we can access our very source. Given this opportunity, we unburden our spirits and are freed to express ourselves."
—from the Introduction

What can you learn about yourself through painting? How can a piece of artwork reflect your own personality, beliefs and values? How can touching brush to canvas help you portray something about yourself that is otherwise inexpressible?

Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative, creative resource. Professional artist and beloved teacher Linda Novick leads you on an exploration of the divine connection you can experience through art. Each chapter includes a simple yoga-inspired breathing and stretching exercise to focus your mind and refresh your body, along with an original art project that helps you explore a theme essential to both your creativity and your spirituality. Whether you're a painting novice or an accomplished artist, no matter your faith and background, this engaging book has a place for you. Experience the joy of unbridled creativity!

Knitting is the miracle of creating new dimensions from a strand of yarn. Let it bring that miraculous transformation to your spiritual life too.

"This book is about seeing and listening. It's about becoming aware that through knitting you can hear and give attention to what’s in your heart and soul—that knitting can be a place of rest and thought and a place for the Divine. It’s about connection—to yourself, to the world, to others and to the Holy."
—from the Preface

What can you learn about yourself through your knitting? What deeper symbolism lies behind the loops and patterns that you create? How can this simple activity help you make your way down a spiritual path? Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative book that will become your spiritual friend, your teacher and your sanctuary. Follow the knitting journeys of the authors and other knitters to discover how they have used their knitting to explore and strengthen their spiritual selves, and how you can do the same. In this joyful and engaging look at a time-honored craft you are invited to:

• Find time and space that was previously hidden in plain sight
• Try creative, thought-provoking original knitting patterns
• Recognize and deepen spiritual connections through knitting
• Meet other knitters on the journey to spiritual and self- discovery
• Explore new ways to expand and savor your knitting community
• Recognize your own power to pass along the knitting wisdom

Let go of your pretensions—squeeze, shape, knead & play your way to spiritual growth.

"I am being formed by the clay. I am reconnecting with the earth, and with the other basic elements, too—air, water, fire—and life itself. Every gesture leaves its trail in the clay. Every fingerprint, a message. My breath fills the cavity. My touch curves the wall of a bowl. And inwardly, I am being formed by the outward practice. I am learning to trust the process, to lean into the possibilities rather than striving for some predetermined goal. I am being hollowed out, stretched and constricted, trimmed and sometimes reworked entirely."
—from the Prologue

Drawing from her first-hand experience of working with clay, Marjory Zoet Bankson takes you through the seven-step process of making clay into a pot, drawing parallels at each stage to the process of spiritual growth:

• Grounding—Connecting with our core elements
• Kneading—Awakening to the inner realm Centering—Gathering everything together
• Shaping—Focusing inner and outer pressures Finishing—Trimming away the excess
• Decorating—Adding a playful touch Firing—Committing to transformation

This simple connection with the earth has the potential to put you in touch with the whole of creation and, at the same time, your soul's longing to participate as an artist, creating something new and unique.

Through reflective questions in each chapter—along with a wealth of unique clay projects that even beginners can do—Bankson invites you on a journey of spiritual discovery, a path of reconnecting with your body and spirit, and with the earth itself.

Learn how to make your own Jewish fabric crafts with spiritual intention—venture into a world of creativity, imagination & inspiration.

Journey along with talented Jewish fabric craft artists from throughout the United States and Israel as they retrace their steps in the creative process used to make thirty evocative projects. Then tap into your inner creativity by following step-by-step instructions to fashion family heirlooms with your own personal flair. Inspirational and motivational, these projects and stories will resonate with your artistic soul and awaken a desire to hand-craft Jewish fabric keepsakes to pass down from generation to generation. Projects and techniques include:

Quilting • Appliqué • Embroidery • Needlepoint • Cross-stitch • Knitting • Crochet • Felting • Needle felting • Tallitot • Tallit bags • Torah mantles • Challah covers • Seder plate • Afikomen envelopes • Torah table (shulchan) covers • Tree of Life & shalom wall hangings • Purim puppets • And more!

With Hook in Hand, Enrich Your Spiritual Practice and Renew Your Awareness of the Connections of Creativity to Spirit

What can you learn about yourself through your crocheting? What deeper symbolism lies behind the loops and patterns that you create? How can this simple activity help you make your way down a spiritual path? Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative book that will become your spiritual friend, your teacher and your sanctuary. Follow the crochet journeys of the author and other crocheters to discover how they have used their crocheting to explore and strengthen their spiritual selves, and how you can do the same. In this joyful and engaging look at a time-honored craft, you will discover ways to:

• Find a Sense of Fullness and Gratitude
• Have More Within a Structure of Less
• Combine the Spiritual Practices of Meditation and Prayer
• Create Tools for Intensifying Spiritual Practice
• Find Your Spiritual Path with Crochet
• Connect with Community Through Crochet
• Make Crochet Uniquely Yours
• And Much More

Find Your Creative Self in the Kaleidoscope of Beads & Color

"Beading and my spiritual path are intricately interwoven. It would be difficult for me to separate the two because they are so completely intertwined with one another. As I sit and weave with my beads, I allow the Creative Spirit to flow through me, and though my hands are doing the work, another force is actively participating in the process. This force is a transmission of Spirit that fills me with deep inner peace and joy as I bead. As a result, the practice of my art form has become a creative path to my sacred center."
—from the Introduction

Believing that beading is a form of meditation through which we can access the Creative Spirit that is always present in us, master bead artist Rev. Wendy Ellsworth offers multiple ways to explore beading as a spiritual journey of self-discovery. Each of the seven chapters is rich with personal stories, exercises, and beading projects, and each project has a meditative experience to encourage a contemplative spirit and creative play. The project results are beautiful, meaningful symbols designed by a master bead artist for both novice and experienced beaders alike.

Original projects include:

• Geometric Mandala
• Personal Mandala
• Personal Prayer Beads
• Beaded Prayer Pouch
• Goddess Archetype Necklace
• Beaded Stick Figure Goddess
• Chakra Necklace
• Chakra Flower Sculpture
• Free-form Gourd Stitch Bracelet
• Ruffled Cabochon Brooch
• Dutch Spiral Necklace
• Spiral Vessel
• Song Beads
• Herringbone Stitch Cuff with Freshwater Pearls

As a generation of mostly self-taught, creative women takes to the world of fabric, quilting and sewing are joining forces in a way that they never have before. Long-time quilters, committed to their craft for decades, are starting to experiment with a bit of home sewing or simple sewing for their grandchildren. The younger side of the sewing community is embracing the world of patchwork and quilting, a world that once seemed inaccessible or even undesirable to younger seamstresses. With Fabric & Thread seamlessly bridges the language and intimidation gap between these two crafts and delivers a unique collection of projects that appeal to sewers and quilters alike.

Featuring 20 new projects, With Fabric & Thread marries the nomenclature of both sewing and quilting to create an effortless set of instructions that anyone can follow. Plus, a special section features six patterns that can be accomplished two different ways: one using sewing techniques and one using quilting techniques. The result is two unique looks from a single pattern.

• Provides an excellent stepping-off point for sewers learning to quilt, and quilters learning to sew
• Chic projects, well-styled photos, and modern illustrations speak to this increasingly unified audience
• Good, basic, understandable instructions

If you're a quilter experimenting with sewing, or vice versa, the beautiful designs in With Fabric & Thread give you everything you need to bring these two crafts together to make unique and inspired projects.

To download the patterns from Handmade Beginnings, please visit: http://www.turnerpublishing.com/books/detail/handmade-beginnings

Perfect for budding designers and newcomers to flowers, this book demystifies the art of floral arrangements with 10 simple techniques plus over 20 stunning bouquet ideas, all presented in lush photographs with clear step-by-step instructions.

Filled with useful tips and easy-to-follow tutorials, Just Add Water reveals the secret to transforming beautiful blooms and greens into gorgeous designs for everyday enjoyment—and with just a few materials. With creative spirit and a friendly voice, author Cynthia Gaylin Bigony shows you how to use what you have on hand already and then elevate it. Learn to combine different colors, textures, and sizes of flowers into a design, repurpose everyday containers into unexpected ways, use rubber bands and tape to invisible but noticeable effect, lengthen the life span of wilting flowers, and much more. Once you discover how amazingly simple and easy it can be, you too can create uniquely styled designs with this beautiful nature-inspired guide.