Books – Page 3 – The Creative Salad

The Best of the New Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts Book

This week a new craft book was released: Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts: 225 Inspired Projects for Year-Round Celebrations, featuring the best holiday craft projects from past issues of Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

Below are my favorite projects from the book with links to each of the crafts on the Martha Stewart Living website. Lucky you, you don’t even have to buy the book… unless you want to, of course! I personally think this new book is a keeper.

Crayon and Waxed Paper Hearts – A simple Valentine’s project that could easily be adapted for the holiday season with silver and gold crayon shavings pressed on wax paper then cut into star shapes! (link)

Felt Fortune Cookies – I love the idea of making these for our play kitchen. (link)

Naturally Dyed Eggs – A great list of natural dye recipes! I would like to use a variation of these organic dye recipes to color play silks. (link)

Photo Gift Toppers – I love the idea of using childhood photos of the recipient on presents set under the Christmas Tree instead of relying on traditional gift tags. What a nice way to add a sentimental touch to presents given at the holiday season. (link)

Paper Making Inspiration

We have been gathering materials to make recycled paper: deckle, dried flower embellishments, paper to recycle, and how-to books full of crafty paper-making inspiration.

This weeks stash of papermaking books from the library:
– Trash-to-Treasure Papermaking: Make Your Own Recycled Paper from Newspapers & Magazines, Can & Bottle Labels, Disgarded Gift Wrap, Old Phone Books, Junk Mail, Comic Books, and More by Arnold E. Grummer (shown in the above photos)
– The Papermaker’s Companion: The Ultimate Guide to Making and Using Handmade Paper by Helen Hiebert (featured in the photos below)
– Beginner’s Guide to Papermaking by Heidi Reimer-Epp and Mary Reimer

We even have a second-hand, dedicated blender just for craft projects.

Let the recycled papermaking projects begin!

Summer Postcard No. 13

We’re going to be blogging lightly for the month of August, posting frequent photo postcards with a snippet of text. View the entire summer postcard series here.

Our toddler reading on vacation while riding a play horse, sharing a special cozy moment with Great Grandma, and keeping her baby-doll occupied. Especially on vacation, we’re a family of readers.

The Only Downside to Being Avid Readers…

All those books really pile up.

Some recent reads…

David has been rereading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin (that HBO recently adapted as the Game of Thrones) in anticipation of this week’s release of A Dance With Dragons.

I recently reread the Dragonriders of Pern series in chronological order, continue to plow through nonfiction books like Nurtureshock (in the same vein of amazing as Punished By Rewards), and remain a magazine junkie (favs include Country Living, Sunset and Living Crafts).

Our daughter has been reading her way through the Biscuit series on her own, and devouring any Henry and Mudge books that we read to her.

I doubt you find it surprising that we max out our library cards each week.

What can I say? We love to read.

Alphab’art: Find the letters hidden in the paintings

Our family tends to collect art appreciation books written for kids.

Our latest discovery is Alphab’art, a book about finding letters hidden in paintings.

This wonderful book presents a wide variety of art styles and subject matter with paintings by some of the masters of western art including Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh, Matisse, Giotto, Chagall, Mondrian, and Klee. Many of the paintings in the book came from French museums and private collections (the book was originally published in France) and were unfamiliar to me.

We found that looking for letters in the paintings jump started our conversation about the many other interesting things hidden away in the works of art.

Our daughter felt proud that she spotted three letter O’s in this painting by Henri Matisse. I love the idea that we can find shapes and letters all around us, in pictures, photos, bookshelves, toy bins, doorways, if we really look. We’re surrounded by beautiful, interesting and educational things.

The book has inspired us to go on an alphabet adventure! I feel a photography project coming on…

Curious about other art appreciation books for kids that we love?
Read all of our previous posts on the subject here.