Description:
Featuring a wide variety of materials, Creative Mosaics offers ideas for adorning lamps, candles, candle holders, frames, vases, tables, trays, and boxes with glass, cork, wood, ceramic pieces, natural items, metal, wax, plastic, and paper. Many of the designs are reasonably attractive, though nothing is particularly outstanding. Most of the approximately 40 projects are fairly easy, but only about half have instructions; the rest are offered simply as photos of finished items with descriptive captions to "allow you to progress your artistic capacities." And therein lies the real problem: originally published in Italian, the book's very stilted translation was obviously never edited in English (as if further proof were needed, there's even a note asking the editor to convert a price in lire to a dollar equivalent). Thus the text is fraught with awkward phrases that at times make deciphering the directions a bit annoying, though not terribly difficult. The biggest frustration to American readers will likely be the dimensions given entirely in metrics without conversions to inches, so some projects will require calculations before getting started. Also, a number of items call for a protective coat of "flatting," which is not defined in any of the explanations of materials; finally, hidden away in the final step of one project, comes the revelation that flatting is "paint for ships," so apparently marine varnish is called for. More careful editorial attention would greatly have improved this book. --Amy Handy
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