Whatever the project, you can do it yourself

REVIEWS BY SARAH E. WHITE

Recent crafting books prove that no matter what craft you enjoy or where you are on the crafting skills spectrum, there's a how-to book made just for you. Whether you're an experienced crafter looking to decorate your home, or a world traveler looking for ways to stylishly capture your memories, or someone aiming to share the rewards of needlecrafts with a new generation, these three books offer projects and inspiration.

Tying one on

If you've traveled to London, you may have visited V.V. Rouleaux, the world-renowned ribbons and trimming company. Annabel Lewis, the company's founder and owner, has so many ideas about what to do with her products it will make an inept home decorator's head spin. Her Ribbons and Trims: 100 Ideas to Personalize Your Home includes more than 100 ideas for using ribbons, beads, feathers, bows, yarn, rope, chandelier crystals and other adornments to recover, repurpose and remake everything from furniture to curtains to lampshades (the feathered lampshade has a certain garish Victorian appeal).

Step-by-step instructions illustrate some project ideas, while others are described or pictured merely as a technique that the home designer could use as a guide. Multitudes of gorgeous photographs give the book a "you can do it" feel, even for people who don't have perfectly put-together homes. The projects can get a little intimidating at times, as when whole rooms decorated with ribbons and trims are shown (a plaid wall created with ribbons rather than paint, for example), but it also offers great tips and tricks that anyone can use to jazz up a footstool or a pillow, or even their whole house.


Been there, now do this

For people whose crafty skills are limited to getting airline upgrades, Travel Scrapbooks: Creating Albums of Your Trips and Adventures might inspire vagabonds to keep their travel photos and mementos somewhere nicer than that old shoebox in the back of the closet—or the memory card in their digital camera. This book features real scrapbooks from crafters across the country, showcasing their travel photos, journaling and design skills in albums about trips to the zoo, Niagara Falls, the great cities of Europe, Sea World, a local carnival and many more adventures.

The scrapbooks are all shapes, sizes and formats—including round books and a "book" in a vintage-looking suitcase—and use tons of different techniques, tools and scrapbooking supplies (resources are helpfully listed in the back so readers can recreate a technique). Tips on such topics as travel photography and using souvenirs in projects are included. Some of the pages featured here may be a little intimidating to new scrapbookers, but crafters of all levels will surely be inspired.


All dolled up

Girls' Best Book of Knitting, Sewing, and Embroidery, by Virginie Desmoulins, aims to give girls an overview of three classic crafts that are still popular among women of all ages. The projects are small, ranging from embroidery sample cards to a knit bag to four sewn outfits (one for each season) for a cardboard doll that is punched out of the cover, perfect for an afternoon (or many afternoons) of crafty fun. Given the doll, readers might assume that Desmoulins is aiming at the relatively young, but the vocabulary sometimes seems a little advanced for grade-schoolers, and some of the instructions will likely send girls running to their favorite crafty adult for advice. Girls with some crafting experience, however, will find the instructions and illustrations enough to guide them through the easy projects. And a mother, grandmother or aunt who wants to teach a young girl how to knit, sew or embroider, will find Girls' Best Book a helpful resource.


Sarah E. White is a freelance writer and the guide to knitting on the website About.com (http://knitting.about.com).

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