Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts Book Review

I want to offer a personal review of Martha Stewart's a huge book on all types of crafts. This is perfect for the holidays, particularly when one enjoys making gifts while saving money. I love this fully illustrated book with tremendous details and lists of supplies needed. It is an awesome book, and I feel it is an excellent book for any crafter. It has more templates to copy than most craft books offer. There are 416 pages overflowing of images, crafts. The tools and materials in the back of the book are a visual aid to all the indispensable glues, cutting tools, and everything else needed to craft any project in her book.

I am also referencing this hub and book in my Go Green to Help the Environment Gifting for the Holidays, (an exclusive title) and in 10 Best Gifts for Crafters. Again, it is comprehensive for the theme and for the holidays.

Martha Stewart is truly the guru of crafting and self sustaining business ideas. This book gives one the opportunity find the crafts you find personally appealing.

Mosaics. I have always had a passion for mosaics. I love the idea of reusing broken objects that would normally end up in the trash. I added a picture of the mosaic cement stepping stones I create with tiles, seashells from travels and sea glass (craft store). I have some broken precious moment figurines I intended to use too.

Seashell art is another cool crafting technique. I put them in my mosaic designs too. Cover tabletops, yard art, mirrors, trays and backboards for kitchens and bathrooms. This is a highly personal craft with uniqueness found in every artist. Most artist studios that produce mosaic work are also available for commissioning specific requested works.

Paper crafting is my personal top favorite. I work on mine every week.

Memory boxes or shadow boxes are a visual poem that represents a person, place or thing with little trinkets, images, word and special touches that bring each individual box to life. I love the idea of building boxes filled with treasures. This is a great "how to" guide and covers specimens like butterflies, shells, and traveling. My favorite to create are for babies, couples and children. It is a special gift for grandma and grandpa, little memory treasures, filled with keepsakes.

Beading, I never knew how special beading was until I found this book. The flowers and lettering are useful for adorning so many things. Hairpieces, shoes, packages, Christmas trees and jewelry. I highly recommend the book for this section.

The nature crafts are green crafting and gifting, all in one. Flower pressing, flower printing on fabrics to fall decor using acorns and leaves. I have tried the Sun Print paper with botanicals from my yard and garden. The intense blue background is my favorite color. Adding a little writing with the white sunbathed image, is a personalized way to illustrate each image if you like. The gift tag idea, your receiver will never throw it away. They are too pretty to trash.

The candle making section is a bit more extensive and covers many holiday ideas. Items I have crafted with are the bees wax sheets to create candles. I even add paper craft around the base in holiday colors, to add to holiday decorations.

Clays have endless crafting possibilities, there are a few to get you started in here,

Wreaths, the section is in the back of this book. I have her crafting books that are just on wreaths. Both are great to get you started, in magnificent detail.

Baby crafts, one of my favorite.I remember making those wooden hangers with rub on decals. They were so pretty.

The last picture with me in action doing the Stamping Up (c). I love making cards for people. I even gift tags and note cards. I put real pretty labels on the food items I gift at Christmas. In Martha Stewart's book, the paper crafts are divided up throughout the book.

The last picture with me in action doing the stamping up. I love making cards for people. I even gift tags and notecards. I put real pretty labels on the food items I gift at Christmas. In Martha Stewart's book, the paper crafts are divided up throughout the book.

There are simple invitation and holiday Cardmaking ideas. The custom envelopes are really decorative. One of my most common things to do with paper is the cutting and punching. Punching saves a lot of time, while adding a lot of character. I have an owl punch that allows me to punch all the pieces in one shot, stamp it with ink or water color it and assemble it till it looks like a friendly owl. Cutting paper in great detail is a bit more of an art form and the how to is in this book. I think that is a big benefit.

Paper flowers have become a big trend this year and into 2012. I love them. You can make them out of coffee filters, card stock paper, crepe paper, and tissue paper. Each style creates a unique look and all the methods are covered in the encyclopedia.

There is a very detailed section on Quilling paper.with a shapes glossary.