Book review: 'One Hour Craft' by Maria Binns

There are hundreds of great craft books out there, the problem is finding them. Crime books for instance are easy - you go to a decent bookshop and there's a great selection, all the major authors and many of the not so major authors too - It'd take you years to work your way through them, and then there'd be a new lot to get into. Not so with craft books (ok so any reasonable sized bookshop will have loads of sewing, knitting and card making books, but I'm talking about 'other' crafts). My home town is fortunate to have two Waterstones stores, one of which does always have a handful of good craft books. A few months later though they'll have a completely different set of craft books. Out with the old, in with the new. Over the years, we've bought quite a few good craft books, so thought I should share a review every now and then.

'One Hour Craft' is a general crafting book, with about 50 craft projects for you to do in. There's a wide variety, with sections for food crafts, sewing, jewellery making, making things with clay and so on. There's step by step instructions and lots of colour photos, average of a couple of pages per project so it doesn't go into a lot of detail. What it doesn't do is give detailed guidance on techniques, it doesn't teach you how to sew, cook or even much about making jewellery (the jewellery designs, like most of the projects in the book, are quite simple). The couple of soap making projects seem cheating a bit ('ready to pour soap'), but it does tell you how to make soap.

Best makes: Felted cushion, Etched Bird Mirror, Avocado Face Mask

Most pointless: Abstract Miniature Painting

For most pointless, a close run second was a polymer clay bottle top. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are lots of people doing great bottle tops with polymer clay, but the one in this book was literally several different colour lumps of polymer clay plonked on a bottle stopper!

Conclusion: I'd say this is good for someone that is only just getting into crafts, or wants some ideas for quick makes. If you are an experienced crafter, or are after some good 'how to' tutorials to learn a new craft, this isn't the book for you.

How much: Retail price is £14.99, but currently on available on Amazon.co.uk for £10.49.