Rating: 
Summary: Two Thumbs Down?NOT!!!!!
Review: Unfortunately, I recently bought this book, sight unseen. If I had seen the book priced at 10 cents at a yard sale, I would NOT have purchased it. If I could give the book a rating of minus 10 stars, I would gladly do so. As an avid artist and craftsperson, my personal art/craft library contains 268 books, and this is the worst book in my collection. Chapters 1 through 9 contain 98 pages, 10 of which are BLANK, with just the word "Notes" at the top of each page. The book contains NO ILLUSTRATIONS or PHOTOS. The 88 pages that are not blank mainly contain just "lists" of tired, old, and obvious ideas for decorating "on the cheap," e.g., use old blankets for pillow covers; make stencils from cardboard; use sheets to make curtains; hang LOTS of baskets; etc. The book is redundant, e.g., in at least 3 places, readers are told to "buy plants" or "get cuttings and grow plants" with which to decorate. Instructions, when given, are unclear or somewhat "iffy": Readers are told they can make a clock, by buying a pre-cut round of wood and marking the center just by "drawing two lines." That method works great with squares, but not with circles. Chapter 3 advises readers to "Use old flannel or oxford shirts to recover a chair seat. Button up the shirt, and then cut the material so the buttons run up the middle of the seat." Sit on buttons?! Can you spell O-U-C-H?! Every chapter that I read contained errors (typos; spacing; grammar). There is no index, so even if a reader happens to find something worthwhile, but forgets to bookmark it, they might be very hard-pressed to find it again. Most, if not all, of the information in this book is readily available elsewhere, i.e., in hundreds of art, craft, and decorating books and magazines, as well as from free, or mostly free, resources, such as libraries, the Internet, and TV programs on HGTV, TLC, Discovery, and Oxygen, just to name a few. I give this book 2 "thumbs down"!
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