Parties and Projects for the Holidays

Rating:
Summary: It's About Time!!
Review: After searching for several years for a Christmas craft book that is simple enough for the average person to follow, Martha Stewarts "Parties and Projects for the Holidays" hit the spot. She does an excellent job of illustrating the instructions to make them easy to follow. She also included some great crafts for children of all ages in this book. Not only are there these beautiful crafts for us to try, but just as many good recipes. A definate and all around great buy!!

Rating:
Summary: It's About Time!!
Review: After searching for several years for a Christmas craft book that is simple enough for the average person to follow, Martha Stewarts "Parties and Projects for the Holidays" hit the spot. She does an excellent job of illustrating the instructions to make them easy to follow. She also included some great crafts for children of all ages in this book. Not only are there these beautiful crafts for us to try, but just as many good recipes. A definate and all around great buy!!

Rating:
Summary: I can finally do it!!!
Review: After searching for the past seveal years to find a Christmas project, I have finally found a source that can help me do just that. Martha Stewart's "Parties and Projects for the Holidays" includes so many unique and exciting holiday crafts and recipes. The book also does an excellent job of illustrating the directions for almost each and every craft, which comes in great use. She did a wonderful job including a section of crafts that are great for children and easy for them to complete. A definate and all around great buy!!!

Rating:
Summary: Another Martha Classic!
Review: Here's another Martha book for the collection! With all the ideas and beautiful pictures, it's a book that sure to inspire most to creating beautiful tables and decorations for your own spectacular party!

Rating:
Summary: Another Martha Classic!
Review: Here's another Martha book for the collection! With all the ideas and beautiful pictures, it's a book that sure to inspire most to creating beautiful tables and decorations for your own spectacular party!

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre for Martha
Review: In this month's (Nov. 2000) issue of ************************, Martha's traditional opening letter proudly describes the way she gave a presentation to potential stockholders about "spreading our costs of creating fresh and timely and evergreen content." What that means for us, Martha's consumptive public, is increasingly recycled content, which is unfortunately the case in this book.

While previous Holiday books have also consisted of compilations of recipes and projects from the magazine, they were richly useful and well-organized. This book doesn't even bother to reformat the original content. The book is divided into three parts - "The Parties," "The Projects," and "The Recipes." So, "The Parties," are basically reprinted articles from the magazine in their original "story" form, whose recipes are inconveniently clustered at the back. Of course, the quality of the recipes is high - included in this book are my favorite cookie recipe ever (Torie's Oatmeal cookies), and you'll be interested in the menus if you're thinking of making crown roast or roast goose this year. "Party plan" timelines are also included. However, I see no real reason to buy this book if you've subscribed to the magazine for a few years, or what advantage this book has over the newly released compilation of MSL recipes.

"The Projects" section's obvious intended highlight is the creation of the candy decorations featured on the cover. People with children might be interested in this, as there is a menu devoted to accompany a "Candy Craft Party with Kids," with the quintessentially traditional peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, mac and cheese, little pigs-in-blankets, and cocoa with candy canes. Other projects, like ideas for giveaways, are skimpily represented.

On the whole, I am a great fan of Martha's, but I find previous Holiday books, such as "Christmas with Martha Stewart Living," or "Handmade Christmas" more charming.