Lucky Day Give-Away: Microcrafts

This is a book called Microcrafts, compiled by Margaret McGuire, Alicia Kachmar, Katie Hatz and friends.  The book is a collection of lovely, teeny-weeny crafts of all sorts--nearly every project in here is smaller than a spool of thread, and we all know tiny directly translates to sweet and clever in the crafting lexicon.   The projects are designed by a pell-mell assortment of crafters--one of which includes me (giggling coyly behind my hand, blushing, swelling preposterously with pride, but also wishing you would all stop looking at me now...no, really, do stop now...).

I have two designs in the book, actually--my Bitty Bow Wow (listed generically as Dogs in the table of contents) and all of his itty bitty doggie accoutrement...

...and my Matchbox Monsters (called Monster Babies here) with their little diapers and matchbox bed with a scrap of a blankie to snuggle under.

Oh--but there is more.  Lots more, people.  This book has 25 teeny projects!  The craft mediums range from plushie sewing to book binding to jewlery-making to button crafts to quilling to gardening, for god's sake! Check out a few of my faves...

...the taxidremy-inspired Deer Heads by Katie Hatz...

...the Candy Charms by Mei Pak...

...the Spool Dolls by Hope Watthanaphand...

...the Planets (Pluto included!) mobile by Alicia Kachmar and Melaine Kachmar...

..and what may be the sweetest little fairy-tale-inspired greeting cards ever by Larissa Holland (you know, from Mmmcrafts).  The book includes clear step by step instructions for each project with full-size templates, as well as an appedix with further info on supplies and basic techniques.  And the photography of the projects is really lovely (which may not matter to you, but good photography with nice styling is half of what sells a book to me--it inspires me in a way the project alone would not). I am just uber-pleased to be part of this book.

The book is slated to be released October 4th--you can pre-order a copy right here.  But, if you cannot wait, and are feeling a little lucky, I happen to have a a couple of copies right here that I am giving away.  Yep.  All you have to do is leave a comment here by end of day, Friday, September 30th, telling me why itty-bitty crafts appeal to you, or which project you cannot wait to make, or what was the best teeny craft project you have ever made.  I will announce two winners--maybe on Saturday, but you all probably know me better than to count on that.  Let's just say I will announce the winners some time (in the not so distant future, perhaps).

And by the by, Micrcocrafts is published by Quirk Books--a clever little publisher who puts out some not-so-everyday-sorta-books.  Which I tell you because they also published Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs earlier this year.  I have read it and will be reading it to Beeper real soon because I know he would love it at least as much as I did--and you should read it too.   I believe it is billed as a young adult novel but you should not ever let that scare you away from reading a book because a good book is a good book, no matter which age group it may be aimed at (do you need me to remind you how utterly fantastic The Hunger Games trilogy was and how those were all "YA books").  You can read about the book here, and should, at the very least, check out the intriguing video trailer about the book here.  (and if you are still hungry for more--see the author's fascinating video journal about his exploration of abandoned homes in Europe in order to get video to use in the book trailer--right here...)