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

In this beautiful festive craft book, Caroline Wendt and Pernilla Wästberg present a wealth of recipes, decorations and gifts to add a little Scandinavian magic to any Christmas!

Bake tasty festive treats, from savory breadsticks to delicious gingerbread men. Add Scandinavian flair to your home with cushions, wreaths and crocheted Santas. Decorate a Christmas tree the Swedish way, with frozen angels, knitted baubles and icing snowflakes. And share the festive cheer with perfect gifts like cookie jars and cute caramel crackers.

A Swedish Christmas is packed with wonderful festive projects using all kinds of materials and techniques. Each project comes with simple, easy-to-follow instructions and beautiful photographs.

Indulge your artistic side, explore your imagination and record your thoughts or life in your own personalized scrapbook journal, collaged with ephemera and embellished with stickers, cut-outs and motivational quotes.

Sometimes referred to as a smash or junk journal, scrapbooking can be used to create collages of your favourite themes, record moments or ideas, or keep a lasting record of memorabilia. Discover all the inside tricks and tips from the most popular scrapbooker on social media, and explore her themed layouts, from dark academia to vintage fashion. Find out how she puts her pages together, what inspires her, how and where she sources materials and tools, and how she works in those tiny, tiny notebooks. Packed with inspirations, motivations and practical know-how, you'll soon be hooked on this hands-on hobby that expresses your creativity and relaxes your mind and body at the same time.

Make Slow Living Part of Your Everyday!

“Slow Living is a work of art…I observed a sense of calm within myself as I read its pages and appreciated the beautiful pictures.” —Andrea Henkels, author of Herman Heals His Heart

Living peacefully is within reach if you slow down your life. With Slow Living, you too can embrace simple living and mindfulness for peace-induced days!

Looking for peace and happiness? Book a personal reading hour with Slow Living, your guide on how to slow down your life and live peacefully. Helena Woods, author and creator of popular YouTube channel Simple Joys, reveals the wisdom she has learned by moving abroad from the US and living a slower life in France. With beautiful prose and original photography, she provides inspiration and guidance to create a simple living environment wherever you are.

Slow Living is for anyone looking to simplify life. Personal growth books for women tend to leave out men and children, but this book was intentionally crafted with everyone in mind! If you're looking for how to improve yourself and how to get into simple living, then this is the guide for you! For many, a slow European lifestyle seems out of reach, but with the direction in this book, readers are able to craft this lifestyle for themselves anywhere, anytime.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Ways to value quiet moments, which bring simple joys to your life
• How slow living takes root when less becomes more in your home
• A guide on how to simplify your everyday life for mental clarity
• How to create routines that enrich your mind and feed your soul

If you like books for homebodies or if you enjoyed Slow, Essentialism, or Simple Pleasures, you’ll love Slow Living.

Transform Old Tech into Amazing Modern Inventions

#1 New Release in Electronics and Microelectronics

A tech book for tinkerers and makers. Creating new zombie tech from old tech is eco-friendly and it’s also a fantastic way to learn about the technology we use (or used to use) every day. The only limit is your curiosity and willingness to tinker!

DIY science projects using your discarded stuff. We all have a drawer or closet full of old discarded tech just sitting around gathering dust. Memories of a bygone technological era that have been replaced by newer, shiner, smarter devices. What can you do with them? Most of us don't even know how to properly dispose of them. If only there was a way to save them from their untimely fate.

Hardcore electronics and computer projects. Well empty out that drawer and grab a screwdriver, because the time has come to bring these old devices back from the grave! Old technology may no longer be useful, but it isn’t useless. Hidden inside often discarded devices is a treasure trove of motors, magnets, screens, and other parts just waiting for a chance to be upcycled! And this type of "upcycling" doesn't mean turning an old CD into a coaster, it means something a little more hardcore.

Learn:

• How to make a great Wi-Fi security camera with an old cell phone
• How to make a basic 3D printer out of old computer disk drives
• What can be made with the rare-earth magnets inside old hard drives or the reusable LCD screens in old phones
• And much more

Fans of Popular Science, Smithsonian’s Maker Lab, and The Big Book of Makerspace Projects will love Upcycled Technology.

Hand-painted signs, stickered slogans and knitted hats: craft and protest have gone hand in hand since people began to take to the streets and stand up for change. A way of visualising your beliefs, craftivism combines a passion for making with the desire to make your voice heard - using your own hands to quietly subvert the status quo.

Rebel Crafts collects projects that will inspire change, resist injustice and subvert the everyday. Experienced craft author Hester's Handmade Home shares expert advice in 12 fully illustrated step-by-step makes. With crafts suitable for both the experienced maker and the beginner, Hester will teach you how to stitch your way to freedom, screen-print for equality, letter-write for the people and sport your feminist credentials on a badge. Filled with beautifully photographed ideas for how to use and style your makes, Rebel Crafts is a fun and right-on collection of activism-inspired activities.

In 40 Ways to Fold a Napkin you will discover 40 ways to turn your meal into a tablescaped event, worthy of an Instagram post. From simple folds that can hold cutlery to elegant knots, quirky envelopes and more, your event will instantly become more refined and classy. There are even some special folds for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and more.

From birthdays to DIY weddings, dinner parties or just a Friday night at home for two, this stylish guide is for anyone who loves to entertain. Make every meal an event by folding your napkins.

Whittling is more than just a way of busying idle hands - it is a pastime for those who love the texture of wood and a way of life for those who feel a special connection between people and trees. 

This beautiful and practical guide to the art of whittling offers the perfect antidote to the stresses of modern life and a means of getting back to basics and creating unique items from scratch. Inside you will learn about the ancient art of whittling as one of the earliest forms of artistic expression; the different types of wood to use in your work; the simple tools you need to get started; and the various cutting techniques. 

The Art of Whittling also preaches the idea of Danish hygge - translating to coziness and being with friends and family in a warm atmosphere. Here, author Niklas Karlsson gives us an insight into why the Danes are considered the happiest people in the world - and how you can bring some hygge into your own lives.

More than just a manual, this book offers a contemplative view on a skill that is more popular than ever.

Britain is one of a triumvirate of nations - the others being France and Italy - that is revered globally for its fine craftsmanship and heritage skills. However, while France is wedded to the continuation of 17th- and18th-century master craftsmanship and Italy is focused on particular materials, notably leather working and stone working, Britain is uniquely able to both look back and move forward where craft is concerned. Nowhere else will you find true excellence and mastery of a craft coupled with such innovation and eye for design. Craftsmanship in Britain is neither dying nor dead, but is a continuing and exciting exploration of process, materials and ideas spanning architecture, interiors, fashion and art.

Cool, Calm and Collected introduces the vast array of British craft, from the craftspeople who keep the heritage alive, such as Savile Row tailors and stained-glass makers, to crafts on the edge of extinction - clog makers, damask weavers - and urban craft, artists and more.

Illustrated throughout with stunning shots of the finished products, to behind-the-scenes images in studios and workshops or craftspeople at work, this timely publication celebrates the bespoke craft skills of Britain as a global force, and will hopefully inspire a new generation to seriously consider a professional life in craft.

Make Your Embroidery Pop with 3-D Techniques

“A well-written book that will continue to expand embroidery collections and encourage creativity along the way.” —Sarah Sieg, Library Journal 

#1 New Release in Embroidery

Follow author and needlework artist Rachael Dobbins as she teaches you how to embroider flowers, portraits, and other 3-D patterns that make your art pop—literally. Using a combination of traditional and unconventional stitching and macramé techniques, Modern Embroidery takes traditional embroidery design to the next level while truly encouraging readers to think outside the box.

How to embroider flowers, portraits, and more—like an artist. Embroidery doesn’t have to be flat or about perfection. It can be interpretive, with innovative textures, unconventional color gradients, and movement throughout. In Modern Embroidery, Rachel goes back to basics in order to push the boundaries of traditional needlework. Designed to take you from beginner to intermediate artist, this inspired guide contains new techniques and twenty jaw-dropping embroidery patterns.

Textured hand embroidery made easy. An embroidery book like no other, Modern Embroidery makes a unique craft gift or coffee table accessory for anyone passionate about art in new mediums. In addition to beautiful patterns, you’ll discover how to start embroidery projects and how to apply the same techniques to home décor, clothing items, and much more.

Inside Modern Embroidery, find step by step embroidery instructions, as well as advice on:

• How to turn photographs or sceneries into embroidery templates
• How to create depth and movement
• How to use color palettes to think outside the box 

If you want to learn how to embroider flowers or like embroidery books with patterns, stitching books, or modern embroidery designs—such as Embroiderer’s Guild Transfers Collection, Embroidery, or Foolproof Flower Embroidery—then you’ll love Modern Embroidery.

Feather your nest with this avian collection of easy sewing patterns for beautiful bird designs, all made using simple hand-sewing techniques.

Featuring the most popular and distinctive species – including garden birds, exotic birds, birds of prey, water birds, flightless birds and more – each pattern wings its way to you with step-by-step instructions and full-size templates, making them perfect for all abilities. 

The finished little birdies would make cute brooches, bag charms and home accessories, or can even be scaled up to make bigger plushes, all of which will make your friends into avid twitchers!

Author Alison J Reid has spent months brooding away in her studio, researching all different kinds of birds, both common and rare. She has checked out their shapes, plumage and markings, and spent so much time trying to perfect their colourful, beautiful wings. It became an obsession! It was only by researching the various details that make each breed so distinctive, that Alison has been able to capture each of their unique qualities and differences. 

Pattern, colour and shape are key, so capturing these details in felt was important. Luckily, there are so many different colours of felt available! Felt's non-fraying, double sided, robust qualities make it easy to create all the little details that make each bird design so unique and instantly recognisable.

Each bird pattern can be traced straight from the page (or enlarged if you want to sew a larger plush), and simple instructions mean that even beginners can get started. And because all the birds are sewn by hand, you don't need a sewing machine and can sit out in the garden with the birds while you sew. 

Whether you choose to sew just your own favourites, or make gifts for the other bird-lovers in your life, this book will provide hours of fun and inspiration.

Slow down and embroider your way through the changing seasons with the beautiful debut book from embroidery artist and rising star Emillie Ferris. 

Needlepainting, also known as thread painting or silk shading, is a form of embroidery that creates a realistic, lifelike effect using a single strand of thread and one simple stitch – the 'long and short' stitch. You can create gorgeous colour gradients, magical details and flowing stitch directions that are perfect if you want to embroider flora and fauna. 

In this richly illustrated step-by-step guide, self-taught embroidery artist Emillie Ferris shows you how to pick up a needle and thread in the same way as a paintbrush to create strokes of colour and bring images to life on fabric.

Inspired by nature and the changing seasons, Emillie has created five new and exclusive patterns for the book, four that reflect each season in turn and one special design that brings the natural year together into one showstopper embroidery. 

This book is the culmination of all of Emillie’s skills and years of experience in this wonderful, meditative art form. Each design has around 60 detailed step-by-step photos, showing every stage of the process, so that even complete beginners can follow along and create beautiful embroideries. If you have been considering learning the art of needlepainting but are unsure where to start, then this book is for you!

Not only are the embroideries sublime, but the book itself is a thing of beauty, with incredible attention to detail – from the exquisite photography to the lavish hardback binding, making it a real treasure for the book lover. Plus, high quality iron-on transfers at the back of the book allow you to transfer the designs directly onto fabric to get started straight away.

In this book Emillie generously shares her tried and tested tips and techniques, including advice on materials, transferring designs onto fabric, and fully illustrated explanations of the stitches and skills needed. The five in-depth projects draw on Emillie’s love of nature, including motifs that she is best known for such as flowers, foliage, bees and fungi. 

This beautiful book will become an indispensable and treasured guide allowing you to paint with thread the Emillie Ferris way.

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.