Hobbies

Start a New Hobby This Month

What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe?
by Anna Alter

This nonfiction book has many ideas for how to reuse everyday objects with new and very different uses. Some cool ideas include making an old flip-flop into a stamp, creating a favorite t-shirt that you have outgrown into a pillow, making jewelry out of buttons, and making a lantern out of tin cans. There are also tips at the back of the book for both children and parents on reusing and recycling, such as using a lunchbox instead of a paper bag, using glass or plastic containers for storing other things, or taking a bag with you to the park and gathering up trash or recyclables. There are also tips on recycling for the whole family.














Made by Me
by Jane Bull

This nonfiction book is about knitting, sewing, and embroidery. The first step is creating a workbox, and you can often do this with things you already have around the house. In your workbox you need a pincushion, yarn, thread, pins, needles, scissors, and buttons. The book teaches you the basics of embroidery, such as what thread to look for, how to design the patterns, and ideas for what fabrics to use for embroidery. There are also instructions for creating pouches, lavender bags, broaches, key rings, necklaces, and a doll. The book also shows you the basics of knitting, but it also shows ways of knitting without needles and with knitting dolls and your fingers. The book also shows how to knit a purse, hat, and pom-poms. There is a dolly pattern at the back of the book, if you would like to trace the pattern and create your own doll.















More Creative Crafts for Kids
edited by Alicia Zadrozny

This nonfiction books contains ideas for over one hundred projects including those made with recycled materials. The craft ideas include a bubble wrap crocodile, felt-covered notebooks, paper wig, Egyptian necklace, dragon puppets, and a little African village. There are also ideas for holiday crafts, such as reindeer, egg faces, and dough lanterns. Finally, there are craft ideas made from recycled items, such as paper houses out of old shoeboxes, spoon puppets made out of wooden spoons, city made of cardboard, macaroni, paper clips, etc, and string puppets made of toilet paper or paper towels rolls. Each craft has the materials that you will need listed at the beginning, and there are pictures of the steps of the creation process for most of the crafts.














Show Off: How to do Absolutely Everything One Step at a Time
by Sarah Hines Stephens and Bethany Mann

This nonfiction book breaks down different tricks, projects, experiments and stunts into steps to follow. These fall under Amaze, Investigate, Create, Explore, Cook, and Move. At the beginning of the book are the instructions for how to use the book. The book uses pictures, instead of words, to show you how to “show off.” There is also a list of tools that will be needed to do some of the tricks, projects, experiments, and stunts, and there is a list of symbols that you will see throughout the book. The Amaze tricks include making shadow puppets, tying a one handed knot, and slicing an unpeeled banana. The investigate experiments include squeezing an egg into a bottle, bending water with static, and writing in invisible ink. The Create projects include firing a pen crossbow, making a sea globe, and rolling up a duct tape rose. The Explore projects include setting up a solar compass, learning a dog’s body language, and drying and pressing flowers. The Cook projects include pulling taffy, baking stained-glass cookies, and folding fortune cookies. Finally, the Move stunts include building a go-kart, setting up a bocce match, and moonwalking. At the end of the book, there is more information about some of the experiments, tricks, projects, and stunts found within the book.