Description:
Plenty of dedicated crafters are also experienced gardeners, but if your thumb tends to be more glue-covered than green, you can still create wonderful items from the bounty of a less-than-expert garden or buy the supplies from a craft store or garden center. Designer Marie Browning provides a brief overview of craft-friendly flowers and herbs (and even fruits and vegetables), along with good instructions on various methods for pressing and drying them. The large selection of projects falls into several categories: personal and home fragrances, culinary, pressed-flower items, dried-flower decorations, and twig and vine projects. More than 80 recipes explain how to make facial scrubs, bath oils, potpourri, sachets, natural cleaning products, herbal cooking blends, fruit butters, flavored vinegars, syrups, spirited fruits and liquors, and more, plus there are step-by-step directions for an array of candles, frames, wreaths, arrangements, and garlands. Since many of these are destined to be gifts, the book also includes lovely packaging and labeling techniques, plus nice ideas for combining finished projects to produce themed gift baskets. For instance, a selection of culinary herbal blends, garden-herb biscuit mix, and flavored butters, along with a twig frame and a bark candle holder, make up the North Woods Basket, presented in a handmade wood container with natural-paper labels. Be sure to make a few extra items, since you won't want to give them all away. --Amy Handy
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