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 …

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

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!

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.

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