Celebrating the release of the ‘Hand in Hand: Crafting with Kids’ book: A Giveaway!
When the lovely and uber-creative Jenny Doh asked me back in 2010 if I’d like to be part of a new book she was working on about crafts for kids, I was surprised, delighted and humbled. And even more so when I glimpsed at the names of the other mums/bloggers/crafters who were also contributing to the book – many of whom I looked up to for many years and was greatly inspired by.
So it was quite a warm-fuzzy-happy feeling to actually receive the finished book in the mail a few days ago and hold it in my hands. And this one is definitely more endearing to me since it also features my two daughters!
Hand-in-Hand: Crafting with Kids presents craft projects from 20 mums who blog and craft – many of whom you may know or follow already:
Amanda Soule, Maya Donenfeld, Ali Edwards, Pam Garrison,
Nicole Spring, Abby Glassenberg, Dana Willard, Samantha Cotterill,
Cindy Hopper, Jessica Okui, Carly Schwerdt, Jackie Boucher,
Merrilee Liddiard, Jean Van’t Hul,
Kristin Zecchinelli, Ella Pedersen, Beki Lambert, and Rachel Faucett and Jenny Doh.
The projects range from decorations, books, to toys, cushions (and even stilts!) – all projects that kids can make with adult assistance. So you’ll find that the instructions are easy to follow and understand, and that the materials are easy to source. What I love about this book is that it also presents how each contributor encourages creativity in their own children and what they do to foster a creative life.
I flicked through the projects with my daughters and they are keen to give a few of them a go. They were also thrilled to bits to find themselves in an actual book!
The project I contributed is a simple Owl cushion that can be either machine-sewn or hand-sewn and can be embellished to your child’s content:
You can pre-order Hand-in-Hand: Crafting with Kids on Amazon now and it will be officially released to bookstores on April 6th. You can also watch a cute video Jenny made about the book on Youtube here: Hand in Hand: Crafting with Kids by Jenny Doh
To celebrate the release, I have two copies to giveaway thanks to Lark Crafts!
If you’d like to enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post on: your favourite craft activity as a child. Please submit your comments by midnight April 2nd and on April 3rd I will randomly draw 2 comments and announce the winners. Please leave only one comment per person :-) This giveaway is open to all no matter where you live on this great big planet!
Thank you to Jenny for the opportunity to be part of this awesome book!
March 28th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
My all-time favourite activity as a child was simply cutting & pasting – cutting anything and pasting it on everything! Fabric, paper, leaves, tissues glued on to cardboard, boxes, canvas, milo tin cans! I think the ‘grown up’ version of this craft is called ‘Decoupage’ which equally brings as much joy! :-)
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March 28th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Looks like a wonderful book!!!I didn’t have a lot of materials to make crafts when I was little. The only thing I can remember is drawing princesses with their nice gowns. And once I did a Hello Kitty wall art gluing different kinds of beans. I really enjoyed doing that!
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March 28th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
My favoruite would have have to have been the plaster moudls- remember the little fram you clipped together to fit over the glass, the you fit the rubber mould in it, mixed the plaster, poured it in and waited. Then had a hard plaster image to pain t and display! I’m sure I made one every week! Loved it! Oh, and I liked a bit of Copperart in my day (kid of the 80′s).
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March 28th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Awww, what a sweet concept for a book! And the pages look just packed with color and fun! Congrats! As a kid, I was always sewing bits of fabric together for Barbie clothes. After I read The Borrowers book series, I started making found object furniture and clothes for teeny tiny people who might live under my floorboards.
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March 28th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
When I was young I loved to sew and do crochet. My favourite thing to make was ragdolls. I even made one out of leaves. I never could understand why the adults didn’t see how amazing that was!! Thank you for this great opportunity. Cherrie
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March 28th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
I loved making all sorts of things with my mum’s fabric scraps! The older I got, the wider the range of techniques I’d use! It still happens now :)
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March 29th, 2012 at 12:07 am
When I was a child my favorite craft was making potholders on a little red metal loom. Thanks for the giveaway — looks like a wonderful book!
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March 29th, 2012 at 12:35 am
I loved finger knitting on long car trips.
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March 29th, 2012 at 5:13 am
Oooh, it’s a toss-up between Spirograph drawings and making potholders on a little loom!
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March 29th, 2012 at 6:29 am
Thank you for the lovely giveaway, and thank you especially for the chance to remember how much I loved craft as a kid. I loved lots of different crafts, and a favourite is hard to choose (sewing? gluing? copper embossing?), but I fondly remember my ceramics painting class, partly because I enjoyed the little details – carefully smoothing the rough edges, choosing colours and designs – and partly because it was a craft I shared with my grandpa who lived in a different town.
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March 29th, 2012 at 7:34 am
Oh Jho, what a fantastic giveaway! My favourite crafty activity as a child was to make clothes for my assortment of dolls and soft toys. I would make simple knitted tops and sewn skirts for them, which probably all looked like squares tacked together as clothes, LOL.
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March 29th, 2012 at 11:29 am
Wow, look at that, how fabulous to be invited to be in such a fabulous looking resource!
Making friendship bracelets would have to have been one of my favourite craft activities as a child.
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March 29th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
The book looks beauatiful, especially happy to see an article about you and your girls. Congratulations! My favorite craft was drawing and coloring all kinds of designs, then I’d glue them onto colored papers. I spent hours doing them.
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March 29th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
I did not grow up with much art, but what I remember best was enjoying a brand new coloring book!
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March 30th, 2012 at 7:16 pm
Growing up my favorite craft was to cut and paste things. I would draw something cut it out and paste it. My mother wasn’t always crafty so I would draw, color or cut and paste. Coloring books were also my favorite. Coloring pictures for everyone was a great past time. Used to make friendship bracelets and paper flowers at our neighbor’s house. Long summer days were enjoyed like this!!
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March 30th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
I loved making pom poms from wool. I’m not really sure what my sisters and I did with them all, but we loved making them!
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March 30th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
I loved to make collages as a child. Any excuse to cut, paste, and make pretty things. Now I’m passing it on to my own class, this week we are making rainbows from magazine pictures.
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March 31st, 2012 at 12:27 am
I use to do lots of collage for school art class, but I think my favourite was getting messy with the potatoes and lady’s fingers in the cut and print on art paper :) This looks like a great book! Thank you for the giveaway chance :)
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March 31st, 2012 at 8:17 am
My favorite craft as a child was knitting. I would go and stay with my grandma and she would start me off, then I would go to the next Grandma and she would keep me going. I loved it!
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March 31st, 2012 at 11:58 am
I loved making friendship bracelets. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to start making them as well!
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March 31st, 2012 at 3:02 pm
I’m always a sucker for a new crafty book, especially when children are involved!
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Laurel Reply:
March 31st, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Forgot to say my favourite ctafts as a child were making “perfume”, creating doll’s clothes out of scraps, pasting old cards into scrapbooks and flower arranging!
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April 1st, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Oh I would love a copy. We weren’t a crafty family but I remember helping my best friend and her mother make doll house furniture out of cardboard and bits and fabric and thinking it was the best thing ever.
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April 2nd, 2012 at 3:19 am
I’m not exactly sure what my favorite was. I’ve always loved arts and crafts activites. Maybe jewelry making or decorating little boxes or coloring.
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April 2nd, 2012 at 9:26 am
What a great giveaway.. thank you for the opportunity! My favourite activity as a child was anything crafty.. but I especially liked anything to do with fabric and knitting… and I still do! Have a great day x
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April 3rd, 2012 at 4:28 pm
When I was a child, my favorite thing to do was creating little worlds; I was bringing home all sorts of stuff from the woods and meadows and than making petit landscapes and dream places…
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April 3rd, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Thank you all for sharing your favourite childhood crafts! Reading through them has brought back good childhood memories :-)
Entry for this giveaway is now closed and I’ll be announcing the winners in the next post so stay tuned!
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