Non-fiction

“Yellow Owl Workshop’s Make It Yours” by Christine Schmidt

Yellow Owl Workshop's Make It Yours Book Cover Yellow Owl Workshop's Make It Yours
Christine Schmidt
crafts
Clarkson Potter
March 28, 2017
paperback
192


If I were to summarize "Make it yours" in just a couple of words, I would simply call it the printing project guide. Which probably does not do the book enough justice, considering how broadly printing techniques were considered by the author. In fact, you are going to find here projects varying from "traditional" stamps (block printing) to making patterns on paper or fabric, but also fabric dyeing and even stenciling or drawing with chocolate. The author, Christine Schmidt talks about what she knows best for which a proof is her web site Yellow Owl Workshop, selling original, made by her stationary products as well as crafting supplies (stamps etc.)

The book is, interestingly, not organized by the printing technique or by the type of material owhich gets decorated. The astonishing variety of the projects come as a bigger surprise in the book organized by... the motif type. Thus, it starts with abstract and geometric shapes, through everyday patterns, occasions and celebrations, flora and fauna, to travel inspired motifs. At the same time, I feel like the projects are organized from the easiest to the more involved.

Each project is described in step-by-step instructions, well illustrated and easy to follow, if you decide to use the book as the handbook. To make it easy, one of the appendices contains all the templates, which you can use if you want to decorate your home with exactly same patterns as shown on pages of "Make it yours". Now, if you think that using patterns templates is cheating? Perhaps, so just draw your own! You can use the book just as a source of inspiration. To help you create your own projects, another appendix provides a comprehensive list of supplies and additional details about techniques and some basics of design.

The projects in "Make it yours" vary from golden decorated dresser, to tote, scarfs and other garment, stationery - all the way to decorating a cake with chocolate. The interesting range of project has one thing in common, putting personal touches on ordinary everyday objects. Considering that the patterns can then be applied to fabrics, leather, paper, wood, ceramics, even cakes- there is some great variety here!

My favorite part of the book? The designing logo tips in the project "logo stamp". I would rather use the book as the inspiration than follow strict outline, so this chapter helps organize the thoughts and design something really personal and mine. I would strongly recommend it to anybody thinking of doing some crafts, maybe during long evenings this upcoming winter!

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“How to Pack. Travel smart for any trip” by Hitha Palepu

How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip Book Cover How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip
Hitha Palepu
travel
Clarkson Potter
March 7, 2017
Hardcover
128


When I ordered the book, I did not expect how quickly I will have to put all the knowledge from the book in practice. Now, getting ready for a new adventures in my life, I am happy with gained confidence in packing for five days away from home each week...

Do not get discouraged by the size of the book. It is a small format and "only" 128 pages. Within those constraints, the book has all the information you need - and more, on packing and surviving the trip, organized by travel timeline.

It starts about a week in advance your travel, from choosing the luggage and additional "packing accessories". I never heard of "packing accessories before, but I learned a lot from this section. And it comes with added bonus - recommendations for tried products!

Next, the book goes into creating your perfect packing list and selecting wardrobe, tips for packing cosmetics, electronics and other essentials, actual packing it all together (folding vs rolling) and how to refresh your clothing on the go. It ends with gives plenty of travel tips for various stages of your actual trip. Just keep in mind the all the travelling tips are highly relevant only to air travel, though.

The material in the book is very logically organized, very visual way, with illustrations, tables, flow charts and, of course, templates of packing list for various occasions.

I strongly recommend not only to those who often travel for work or take plenty of far-away vacation, but also those who need just struggle with putting together work outfits during the week!

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants” by Stefani Bittner and Alethea Harampolis

Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants Book Cover Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants
Stefani Bittner and Alethea Harampolis
crafts, gardening
Ten Speed Press
Feb 07, 2017
Hardcover
224



Just few months ago, I have reviewed “Natural color” by Sasha Duerr. In some respects, "Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants" Stefani Bittner and Alethea Harampolis is similar, and in some, those are two totally different books. Both are beautifully photographed and printed coffee table books in hardcover. They are perfect for a gift. But where "Natural color" was focused on collecting plants for dying fabrics, "Harvest" promotes planting your garden to have plant material available for all kinds of home projects. And utilizing the plant "from fruit to root", in many cases.

In "Harvest" you are going to find ideas and recipes for all kind of projects: for making food and beverages, skin care products, home remedies and flower arrangements (with all the details on how to arrange the branches for those who like me know nothing about good design!). And these are not the most obvious ideas, for example blueberries are used for natural dye and artichoke for a bouquet. Plants you would not normally think of eating are used as teas, or in butters or vinaigrettes! And of course there is plenty on edible flowers and ideas how to incorporate those into salads.

The plants in the book are organized by season: early, mid and late. Each plant craft or use idea is preceded by plant description, including gardening requirements like hardness zone, sun and moisture needs.

I really enjoyed reading the book, and I am glad I found it just in time to start planning my home garden for this season. I should be able to try many ideas soon!

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

Click on any example book spread to see larger version!

“Just Breathe” by Dan Brulé

Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork for Success in Life, Love, Business, and Beyond Book Cover Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork for Success in Life, Love, Business, and Beyond
Dan Brulé
Atria/Enliven Books
March 28, 2017
Hardcover
224


I have a lot of mixed feeling after reading "Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork for Success in Life, Love, Business, and Beyond" by Dan Brulé I have very mixed feelings about the book.

The book contains an extensive review of various breathing techniques, organized by "application": healing, motivating, developing spirituality. It is accompanied by stories of yogis, soldiers, doctors - those who invented the techniques and those who breathing helped in some way.

At the same time, by the third chapter you get overwhelmed by all those techniques and start wondering what is actually right choice for you? On which one one should you focus on?

Sure, you can boil all of the breathing approaches down to two types: Conscious Breathing and Breath Awareness. And perhaps just focus on practicing those two daily, as described in the first chapter. Or... you can decide to spend 21 days to work on a larger selection of breathing techniques, different one each day. Luckily, this 3-week challenge at the end of the book summarizes the knowledge for you in a more practical way than all the preceding chapters, which are really overloaded with details.

However, if you are interested in exploring breathing to help you in everyday problems, give "Just Breathe" a try. I am sure you will find a helpful tidbit...

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Goodreads. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer’s Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World” by Art Wolfe

Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer's Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World Book Cover Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer's Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World
Art Wolfe
photography
Amphoto Books
September 20, 2016
hardcover
288

I have admired Art Wolfe and his photographs for a long time. He is one of the kind - a pre-Internet (before Flickr, 500px and Google Plus) photographer who build very successful, independent career. While his work was published in well known magazines, he never was affiliated with Life or National Geographic or others. On top of that, he has very strong background in visual arts, which helped him create strong compositions with focus on color contrast, pattern and texture. His images are just stunning.


"Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer's Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World” is a summary of almost four decades of Art Wolfe careers. And the book is so much more a coffee-table style collection of beautiful photographs. Each image is accompanied by the story. In fact, there is a photographer story, telling something about unusual location, and other circumstances surrounding the image, sometimes related to photographic process itself. There are also two smaller tidbits, written by co-author and acclaimed photographer himself, Rob Sheppard. One is  “The nature of the photo” providing a bit more cultural or geographical context. The second one, the “Photo tip” - is short lesson in photography, with advice on things like light, filters, use of shutter speed and similar. Sometimes, when you read all the text in sequence, those short tips seem to break the flow of the book, though, I oftentimes found them distracting and overly simple.


One of the very first advice a new photographer gets when he asks how to improve on his photography is to study the photographs of the masters. It seems like "Photographs from the Edge” is the perfect book for the task - and it comes with cheat sheets in forms of stories and insights. I would recommend it for every aspiring nature and travel photographer, for learning and for pleasure.



I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Capture the moment” by Sarah Wilkerson

“Capture the moment” Book Cover “Capture the moment”
Sarah Wilkerson
photography
Amphoto Books
April 7, 2015
hardcover
256

I was browsing mindlessly for another book to read. Nothing was appealing, and nothing was coming up with “photography” as a keyword. Until the cover image caught my eye and I decided to take a closer look at the “Capture the moment”. I read the short description and I was hooked.

I knew I made the right choice when the book arrived at my doorsteps. “Capture the Moment: The Modern Photographer’s Guide to Finding Beauty in Everyday and Family Life” is beautifully published book. Slightly larger than your typical novel, the black and white picture on hardcover adds to fine art feel, heavy and elegant. The good quality paper gives justice to amazing imagery, many double page spreads (see example spreads in the post – click on each to see larger version). This is how I interacted with the book at first, just picking it up here and there and browsing through images, like you would with a coffee table book.

The book, however, was not meant to be a coffee table book, at least not as the only purpose. It is also a basic photography handbook, explaining some basic concepts of photographing the world around you. However, “Capture the moment” is not filled with large blocks of text. Now, the teaching is done by the very short paragraphs, which can be read when you have a minute or two in your busy day. There is an informative phrase, like a bullet point, followed by a few sentences of explanation and an example image. That’s it. Learning photography in small bites. The tips are organized into following chapters: Natural Light, Composition, Storytelling, Fine art, Black and white, Low light. Each chapter ends with a number of creative exercises, to make reader pick up the camera and go out to explore the world, photographically.

This is not the book you want to pick up when you are beginning photographer and what to learn technical side of using your first DSLR. This is just not the focus of “Capture the moment”. This particular book is about creativity and finding subjects to photograph around you, in everyday life. I find it its strength, since there is plenty of technical manuals on the market.

And just to shortly mention – all the amazing imagery in the “Capture the moment”are of female photographers, part of the group “Clickin Moms“. Their vibrant community is worth checking out.

This review is re-posted from my photography blog, where it was first published on May 19, 2015.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Daily painting” by Carol Marine

Daily Painting Book Cover Daily Painting
Carol Marine
art
Watson-Guptill
November 4, 2014
trade paperback
192

 

I am a photographer, not a painter. I grabbed the book as the idea of creating daily art and selling it online appealed to me. I wondered what lessons will be more general that I can use them, too.

"Daily painting" by Carol Marine is a very hard to classify book. It is a very comprehensive guide - technical, business and inspiration. It explains the concept and advantage of daily painting. Then it goes on to basics of painting - sketching, measuring, mixing colors, composition - all those technical details that make a huge difference in the final output. I learned a lot of tricks I wish I was taught in school when I was struggling in art classes! And some compositional tricks photographers do not talk about (and they should!).

Two chapters deserve special attention. In chapters about choosing subject and about artist's block author did not also present her perspective, but included many voices from the industry - other daily painters, with different experiences and subject matters. It adds tremendous value to the book. So do the authors own painting and countless examples of other artists' art, beautifully reproduced, many on the full page spread - on a higher quality, lightly textured paper. Just to browse through the book is a treat.

There are few business related chapters as well- where to sell, how and why to start your own blog, how to take pictures so painting looks at its best, how to edit photographs and many more!

I finished the book inspired to go back to creating photographs, and maybe even start painting.
I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“John Shaw’s Guide to Digital Nature Photography”

John Shaw’s Guide to Digital Nature Photography Book Cover John Shaw’s Guide to Digital Nature Photography
John Shaw
photography
Amphoto Books
March 17, 2015
trade paperback
240

 

Few years ago, I read John Shaw "The Nature Photographer's Complete Guide to Professional Field Techniques". Written many years ago, when film photography was at its best, the book still brought a lot of good knowledge to be worth my time. This year, when I picked "John Shaw's Guide to Digital Nature Photography" expected no less.

I was not disappointed. This is a very comprehensive book. You will find here something about composition rules, histogram and the use of flashes. You can hardly find an accessory or a technique not mentioned in the book. The concept are explained very succinctly, to fit within the page limit of the book, but hardly ever you will have to go outside the "Field guide" for more information. The only exceptions are few creative techniques in the field (blurs and multiple exposures) and digital darkroom techniques (black and white, stitching and stacking) - just thrown in passing at the very end of the book. I wish more time and space were spend on those useful topics, with few examples of photographs.

The book, 225 pages long, is somehow arbitrarily divided into chapters on: Gear, Getting started (exposure, histogram and such), Lenses, Composition, Close-ups and The photographer at work. Especially those last two are a bit of odd balls, and the content could have been easily merged into other chapters.

The chapter on Gear was one of positive surprises. The focus was not on particular camera body, but in listing useful features and how to set up the gear you have to get the most out of it. At the same time, the author can be a bit opinionated at the time. With the disclaimer throughout the book: "that is what works for him".

And the biggest plus of the book, at least for me - pages and pages of beautiful photographs! At times you wonder, comparing the size of the font and the size of images on the page, what is the real subject of the book.

This review is re-posted from my photography blog, where it was first published on April 28, 2015.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Natural color” by Sasha Duerr

Natural color Book Cover Natural color
Sasha Duerr
non-fiction, crafts
Watson-Guptill
August 23, 2016
hardcover
272

 

The first impression of this book is how much care was taken in printing it. The hardcover feels solid, and the colored photographs inside are beautifully rendered and are, by itself, of professional quality. The book was printed  on quite thick paper. It makes for a perfect coffee table book, and offers a great conversation starter to house guests.

But let's not just judge the book by the cover. There is so much more to it.

The focus of the book is the use of common plants: fruits and vegetables, flowers, even weeds, to create dyes for assortment of craft projects. Can you guess what part of avocado is used for dyeing? What color can be obtained from redwood cones?

The plants dyes are organized by season. For each one, there is a how-to recipe to prepare the dye,  with measures per weight of the fabric, and detailed instruction for dyeing. For each one, there is also an example project, from dyeing clothing and linens, to straw hats and woolen baskets! My absolute favorite are rose petal curtains.

If you think that following the projects in the book requires any specialized knowledge, this is not the case at all. Everything is included. There are chapters devoted to explaining various types of fibers, how to prepare them for dyeing, what additives are needed (not only will you learn what is mordant, but also how to prepare it from old nails), lists of tools and even some techniques for creating interesting patterns!

The book is a perfect read for those interested in natural, fun crafts projects.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. Links in this post may contain affiliate code.

Click on any example book spread to see larger version!

 

Personal story:

I was first introduced to fabric dyeing by a friend of mine. We stayed in the same house, and it was passion of hers, so I joined her in dyeing session couple of times this spring. While she did not work with dyes she herself extracted from plant, it was still a fascinating process to observe how she mixed colors and what final result was on the fabric – in some cases not until few days later!

When I saw “Natural color” by Sasha Duerr, I was excited to delve deeper into  the subject with my typical non-discriminating interest. Was I in for a ride!

 

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. Links in this post may contain affiliate code.

“How to Get Dressed” by Alison Freer

How to Get Dressed. A Costume Designer's Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing Book Cover How to Get Dressed. A Costume Designer's Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing
Alison Freer
non-fiction, style
Penguin Random House
April 14, 2015
trade paperback with round corners
256

 

"How to Get Dressed" by Alison Freer was laying on my shelf for over a year. When I got it from Blogging for Books last summer, I had really high expectations. I was looking forward learning all about, well, dressing up. I wanted to know how to find my style in my wardrobe. How to mix and match various garments, patterns and colors. Learning about timeless pieces and statement pieces.

The author came well recommended, too. With years of experience as costume designer for Hollywood, who would know better?

Yet, the book disappointed.

First, the author's writing style did not go well me at all. I did not relate to her, nor to her humor. Personal preference, yes, but it made it hard to continue on reading.

Next, there are hardly any illustrations in the book. Here we are, in chapter 2, talking about blouses, dresses and jackets, and the previous knowledge or using Google is required to figure out what styles we are reading about. Very disappointing.

Yes, granted, there is a number of good advice, even in those two and a half chapter I read. For example the suggestions of taking your new purchase to alterations shop for perfect fitting. By itself, it did not make me want to continue on reading. Page 42 is as far as I went, and the book was on the shelf since.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. Links in this post may contain affiliate code.