Crafts for Kids

From television personality, children's advocate, and veteran crafter Rosie O'Donnell comes a fresh and fun collection of 100 easy craft projects for parents and kids (age 5 through 12). Projects include bunny piñatas for spring, tie-dye T-shirts for summer, creepy costumes for Halloween, very merry garlands for the holidays, Valentine's Day bouquets, and much more. Packed with practical advice, step-by-step instructions, and gorgeous full-color illustrations, Rosie O'Donnell's Crafty U offers plenty of inspiration for craft projects the whole family can enjoy on holidays, rainy days, or any "crafty" day!

What exactly is a slope? What's the difference between a tile and a plate? Why is it bad to simply stack bricks in columns to make a wall? The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide is here to answer your questions.

Focusing on building actual models with real bricks, The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide comes with complete instructions to build several cool models but also encourages you to use your imagination to create your own fantastic creations.

Inside, you'll learn:

• The best ways to connect bricks and creative uses for those patterns
• Tricks for calculating and using scale (it's not as hard as you think)
• The step-by-step plans to create a train station on the scale of LEGO people (a.k.a. "minifigs")
• How to build spheres, jumbo-sized LEGO bricks, micro-scaled models, and a mini space shuttle
• Tips for sorting and storing all of your LEGO pieces

The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide also includes the Brickopedia, a visual guide to nearly 300 of the most useful and reusable elements of the LEGO system, with historical notes, common uses, part numbers, and the year each piece first appeared in a LEGO set.

The firm foundation for your LEGO hobby starts here!

Published in cooperation with The International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

"Doll quilts are little gems -- microcosms of quilt history."

So writes author and quilt historian Merikay Waldvogel in Childhood Treasures: Doll Quilts By and For Children. This lovely book showcases 100 doll quilts, made from 1830 through the 1950s. All are selected from Mary Campbell Ghormley's collection, possibly the largest private collection of doll quilts in the world, numbering more than 300 doll quilts.

All doll quilts tell a story that begs to be retold, says Waldvogel. She sets out to reveal these gems' hidden truths, looking for clues in each quilt's fabric, style, pattern, piecing, and stitching. This may be the first book to study doll quilts in this depth.

This informative book is for anyone interested in antiques, miniatures, quilts and needlecrafts, dolls, and decorative arts. These doll quilts have an irresistible charm, captured graphically in the book's rich color photography.

Each quilt in Childhood Treasures is documented with an informative caption. Other primary sources help put these quilts in their historical context, including:

Antique doll beds, on which many of the quilts are displayed

Vintage photos of girls and their dolls

Original quilt patterns from farm and home catalogs of the early 20th century
Textile company history

Magazine excerpts of quiltmaking endeavors

This book is a visual and historical treasure.