Upcycling Celebrations: A Use-What-You-Have Guide to Decorating, Gift-Giving & Entertaining

There were about 10 projects in this book that I have made and planned to make.loved the gold leaf wishbones, S.O.S. tins, a rather unique idea to cover hangers, Valentine's from soda cans, and even T-shirt bowls. Some of the projects are too simple and child like for me like the styrofoam hearts stuck on twigs and put in a pitcher. Turkeys made from red potatoes with feathers made from crayons as Thanksgiving place markers. Many others are very clever and take no special equipment. The illustrations are terrific and it is pretty typical of recycle craft books. Not every one is interested in the same things you are but they can choose from over 250 pages of projects. I found enough items I wanted to try to make the book a permanent part of my craft book collection.

Not all of the ideas in this book appealed to me, but there are some absolutely excellent ways to reuse or repurpose things you might otherwise throw out. My especial favorite is to take old cloth flowers and dip them in a solution that makes crystals form on the petals. I have seldom seen anything so attractive in decorations. There are other ideas that will appeal to you and make your celebrations just perfect.

I gave this book to my daughter for Christmas. She loves it and has already started a project and planning several more. She's sews and crafts, so this book is giving her great ideas and inspiring more creative crafts. I'm so happy I ordered this for her.

Gave book to neighbor who has 3 gran daughters. Grandma liked the informative pictures.

It is good to have fun with.

Neat book lots of interesting projects.

very informative book with good ideas for working with kids. Author well known in his field. Arrived in good order and quickly.

Very few ideas I would actually use. I thought I ordered the book that was just about up cycling though, not the celebrations one, so I was disappointed even when it arrived

I wasn't so excited about the ideas in this book. The presentation of the finished projects makes them look good, but what I want in an upcycling book is more than ideas that look good in the author's book. And if a person is not skilled at presentation or doesn't have the necessary presentation elements to set up alongside the projects, then I suspect that some of the projects would just look silly to most party guests.I also didn't like the fact that some projects used a relatively small amount of "leftover stuff" and required a significant purchase to finish the project. I'll take the grape stem project as an example. You take leftover grape stems and cover them with something sticky (spray glue or paint?) and glitter. In the end you have made the grape stems unusable for the compost pile and used up good glitter and spray glue, which you might even have to go out and buy for the project in the first place. Does this make ecological sense? I suppose you might have avoided buying a new decoration from the store, which would help the environment by not encouraging more manufacturing, but that's how a number of projects from this book seemed to me. The actual amount of stuff that was recycled didn't really justify the new, usable products you had to perhaps purchase and then invest into making the project, and I often found the end results of the projects not so thrilling/usable anyway.In this same vein, the author sometimes used food in his projects. Again, if it reduces the number of newly-manufatured items that get bought, then I suppose you can feel like it's worth it for the environment, but generally that food would get eaten and serve a useful purpose WITHOUT being made into a decoration.If you're willing to invest the potatoes, I thought the potato-turkey idea (shown on cover) was very cute. Also I appreciated the man's perspective on parties, which comes out in some of the written parts of the book. So often it's women who write or do videos and blogs about hosting parties, so I found it interesting and useful to hear what a man thinks works well for hosting a party.