Gorgeous Gifts
By Rebecca Craig
Kingfisher, $7.95
48 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0753459676

Dream Bedroom
By Rebecca Craig
Kingfisher, $7.95
48 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0753459669

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

With all the talk about recycling and green living, your kids may be eager to apply these ideas personally. And that's where the Ecocrafts series of books can come in handy, Gorgeous Gifts and Dream Bedroom in particular. Each craft included in these books recycles everyday household items in making new items.

While both books are slim volumes chock full of step by step instructions and photos of in-progress crafts and finished results, the angle of each is a little different. Gorgeous Gifts is aimed at young crafters who want to make practical, homemade gifts using at-hand and recycled materials, while Dream Bedroom is for those with want to fill their bedrooms with crafts that are useful as well as reflective of their personal taste. Neither book spells out a particular gender as its intended audience, however the heavily pink and purple covers strongly suggests most readers are going to be girls (although the projects offered to readers certainly aren't all girly).

In Gorgeous Gifts, kids can make Starry Jars (small painted glass jars for holding tea lights), bookmarks out of coffee stirrers and embroidery thread, sock puppets, photo magnets, personalized stationery, Styrofoam airplanes, mouse pads, shiny gift bags, and more. Dream Bedroom makes it possible for kids to get organized with a brown paper bag wall organizer, a papier-mâché jewelry stand shaped like a hand, a jungle desk organizer (using cardboard tubes), door hangers, and a photo frame built from CD jewel cases.

Each book's opening pages suggest the materials and items needed for a ready-to-go craft kit, including paint, pencils, pens, scissors, glue, etc. Detailed instructions are also given for tracing and papier-mâché. Templates for a variety of projects are included in the back of the book. All the crafts are made up of painting, gluing, cutting, tracing, papier-mâché, and the like. They're kid-friendly and require a minimum of adult involvement (although like any arts and crafts project, adult supervision, or at least awareness, is probably a good idea).

The nice thing about these books is that the materials kids need are things you'll likely already have on hand and the projects can be tackled by kids themselves from start to finish. The text is easy to read, and subtle cues like a trail of stars from one picture to the next keep readers on track with doing the steps in order. Sprinkled throughout the book are facts about the environment and recycling, supporting the overall theme of promoting recycling.

With Gorgeous Gifts and Dream Bedrooms, young crafters will find a wealth of ideas for putting ordinary household objects that might otherwise end up in the trash to good use, making bracelets, magazine holders, planters, and more. In addition to getting to put their artistic skills to good use in making earth-friendly crafts, kids also get to flex their creativity in learning to see familiar objects in a new light, with an eye toward renewing, reusing, and recycling.