Holiday Review: Glitterville's Handmade Christmas: A Glittered Guide for Whimsical Crafting!

Title: Glitterville's Handmade Christmas: A Glittered Guide for Whimsical Crafting!
Author: Stephen Brown
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: September 9th 2014
Source: Netgalley & Andrews McMeel Publishing

Description via Goodreads:

Have yourself a Glittery Little Christmas -- with twenty new whimsical, winter-wonderful projects from the Craft Elves at Glitterville!

Following the success of Glitterville's Handmade Halloween, Glitterville is back for the sparkliest holiday of all! Glitterville's Handmade Christmas is as bursting as a mantle-hung stocking with twenty new whimsical, winter-wonderful craft projects that will fill your home with sleighfuls of cheer. Hundreds of beautiful, easy-to-follow, step-by-step full-color photos and how-tos make the crafting fun and the results foolproof. From a Jolly Dolly Holly Wreath or a charming Glittery Village you can nestle into its own Sparkle Forest, to the frostiest Magic Snow and the jolliest pine-cone-bodied Glitter Gnome, "yule" find everything you need to make your home glisten and shine this holiday season!

★★★★

When I saw this book, I thought it would be a fun way for my girlfriend and I to do something Christmassy and fun together. This book is filled with adorable projects that I would love to have in my home. Sadly though, I think I'll leave it to her to make the designs from this book. I don't think I have the chops.

This book contains twenty crafts for the winter season that I absolutely love. There is so much glitter, y'all, and I love it. The instructions are step by step, and fully illustrated so that you can follow along with the pictures to ensure that your crafts are coming along nicely. There are also a lot of techniques used in this book. The author provides steps for these too, but as an un-crafty person, some of them, like using a sewing machine, just aren't in the cards. These designs are too cute but there are things like sculpting faces or painting them that, again as a non-crafty person, I don't think mine would come out quite the same as the author intended.

That all being said, my girlfriend is the artistic one between us and she didn't have a problem with any of the skills or techniques that the book called for.

The designs that I thought were the cutest (though it is super hard to pick) are the Glitzen the Reindeer Candy Box, Nutty as a Fruitcake Party Hat & Frosty Folly on a Swing.

This book gets four stars from me because the designs are glittery and adorable and fantastic, the steps are clear and fully illustrated, and the techniques are well explained, but it also comes with a warning: If you are non-artistic or new to crafting, proceed with caution. This seems more like an intermediate level book.

Thanks to Netgalley & Andrews McMeel Publishing for my copy in exchange for my honest review.