Book Review - "1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse," by Garth Johnson

I ordered this book from Amazon.com and it arrived today. I opened it up and it wasn't at all what I expected. It is a book of photos. There are no instructions to make the ideas listed in the photos. In fact the only text at all associated with the photos is a number, the name of the photo contributor and the contributors location.

I flipped to the back of the book and noticed that the photo numbers are indexed in the back. By each number appears again the name of the contributor and a small blurb, less than a full sentence, with the craft name and the materials used to make it.

I was encouraged that at least I could figure out the materials used to make the craft, by flipping to the back index. I browsed through the book photos once again, trying to decide if I was going to send the book back or keep it.

The book is divided into sections including: soft goods (clothes), jewelry, crafts, housewares, and art. To be fair, I am a very practical person. I want to make crafts that are functional. The majority of the ideas (photos) in the book are artistic, but not very practical, or functional. There are many ideas for artwork that is rather interesting, but would serve no real role in the home other than a conversation starter. From the book, I personally picked out 10 ideas that I enjoyed and thought I could use, but I had no instructions on how to make the ideas that I saw. Soon I will start working on that.

I decided to keep the book. I guess that I felt the 10 ideas were interesting enough to keep the book around. However, if I didn't have to pay shipping to send it back, I probably wouldn't order it again.

Here is the book on Amazon:


I also ordered some other recycled craft books at the same time. They haven't arrived yet, but as soon as they do, I will review them as well. Stay tuned! :)