A comprehensive, organized, and deliciously readable manual that provides instruction with enthusiasm and ease.
Watson, a writer of several books about innovative crafting, offers a thorough introduction to a clever new craft.
The author’s charming guide presents advice on creating decorations and useful household items from polymer clay with the help of an unexpected set of tools: cookie dough molds. The book, which is divided into two sections, is appropriate for crafters at every level. It begins with tips on materials, including a comprehensive list of mold brands and where to find them. Items like these are relatively uncommon in contemporary kitchens, but crafters who might be daunted by the idea of using them to work with clay will be reassured by Watson’s detailed instructions on their employment and maintenance. Readers will find it hard to resist Watson’s excitement throughout these pages: “It’s a match! Cookie molds and polymer clay are perfect crafting companions!” Still, her eager outbursts are tempered with levelheaded advice about clay safety and meticulously researched information about different types of materials, adhesives, and tools. In the book’s second part, Watson describes 32 projects that will allow readers to practice the skills they’ve just learned. They include an easy, one-piece Halloween basket charm and a more intricate majolica box, and each project’s difficulty is ranked on a scale from Beginning to Intermediate to Advanced. Shepard, Watson’s husband, has photographed her creations at every step of their construction, making even the most complicated projects accessible for ambitious crafters. With easy-to-follow instructions and more than 170 photos, Watson’s book is the authoritative guide to a relatively obscure crafting art, as well as a treat to read.
A comprehensive, organized, and deliciously readable manual that provides instruction with enthusiasm and ease.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Shepard Publications
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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