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Description of Book
Harvest the most glorious gifts right in your own backyard--and show your family and friends you care enough to take the time and make the very best! Gather the most fragrant herbs, the prettiest roses, and the garden's freshest vegetables and use them to whip up cosmetics, perfumes, potpourri, and many more homemade presents. Experiment with the variety of techniques for drying and preserving your bounty, including giving it a "jump start" in the microwave. Press flowers and vegetables for displaying under glass or mounting on cards and labels. Concoct individualized floral waters, as well as botanical bath and beauty products. Prepare delicious herb butters, oils, vinegars, and flavored teas and liqueurs at a fraction of what they cost in stores. Don't worry if you don't have a garden: just take a trip to your local farmer's market and you'll be ready to craft!
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Plenty of dedicated crafters are also experienced gardeners, but if your thumb tends to be more glue-covered than green, you can still create wonderful items from the bounty of a less-than-expert garden or buy the supplies from a craft store or garden center. Designer Marie Browning provides a brief overview of craft-friendly flowers and herbs (and even fruits and vegetables), along with good instructions on various methods for pressing and drying them. The large selection of projects falls into several categories: personal and home fragrances, culinary, pressed-flower items, dried-flower decorations, and twig and vine projects. More than 80 recipes explain how to make facial scrubs, bath oils, potpourri, sachets, natural cleaning products, herbal cooking blends, fruit butters, flavored vinegar, syrups, spirited fruits and liquors, and more, plus there are step-by-step directions for an array of candles, frames, wreaths, arrangements, and garlands. Since many of these are destined to be gifts, the book also includes lovely packaging and labeling techniques, plus nice ideas for combining finished projects to produce theme gift baskets. For instance, a selection of culinary herbal blends, garden-herb biscuit mix, and flavored butters, along with a twig frame and a bark candle holder, make up the North Woods Basket, presented in a handmade wood container with natural-paper labels. Be sure to make a few extra items, since you won't want to give them all away.
--Amy Handy
Booklist
Many herbal tomes profess to act as one-stop crafting, containing everything needed to put together impressive gifts. Vancouver Island author Browning carries through on that promise, gathering dozens of recipes and a number of techniques to create eight unusual baskets. Building up to that climax of packaged goodies are, first, the selection of plants and herbs, all easy to locate no matter what the neighborhood or weather. The how-tos are divided by type: personal fragrances (bath oils and facial scrubs), home fragrances (window spray), culinary collection (candied ginger scone mix), and decorative accessories (from a blossoming floral hat to vine wreaths). Pick a posy or two to create a millefiori bath collection or an elegant Della Robbia basket.
-- Barbara Jacobs
Craftlink Magazine
Not a Gardener? No problem! You don’t have to be a gardener to reap the bounties of Gifts from your Garden. Create your own fragrances and botanical bath and beauty products. Make edible treats such as herb butters, oils and vinegars and flavored teas and liqueurs at a fraction of what they cost in stores. Also included, techniques for all kinds of drying and preserving plants are outlined. Canadian Marie Browning has done it again – look out Martha Stewart!
Our cover comes to us from Marie Browning, a virtuoso crafter from Brentwood Bay, BC Canada. Marie has just released her latest book
Making Glorious Gifts from Your Garden. The prolific crafter created this harvest of gift ideas using herbs, flowers and vegetables grown in her garden. The book was photographed at Marie’s home and studio just outside of Victoria. Marie was featured in Craftlink’s August 1998 issue and her latest book is proof that life in the craft lane has not slowed down for Marie.
Reviews
Great ideas! February 13, 2001
4 stars
Reviewer from New Britain, CT USA
I recently purchased this book, and upon a more thorough review at home, discovered just how marvelous it was! The book is great because it gives you a diverse selection of projects from using herbs, to pressing flowers, to making oils, to making gifts from things in your garden, to culinary crafting...I could go on and on. Also, the instructions are very simple and easy to follow and there are very nice, very clear photos for referral. This is the book for the person who likes to do more than one thing, not just focus on one type of craft.
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