The Big Green Book of Recycled Crafts

The book's use of brown and green colours throughout instantly put me off as it made it look rather dated. The book contains projects suitable for both adults and children interspersed (I think seperate books would be preferable). The projects are divided into subsections of :

• Plastic
• Paper
• Glass
• Cans
• Textiles
• Throw Aways

A lot the projects in the book are quite old fashioned  and I've seem most of them either in other craft books or on websites like Craftster. The 'plastics' section possibly fares the worst with cringe inducing crafts such as the use of sunglasses as mini photo frames and a plastic coke bottle to create a lamp base. The use of denim jeans in various crafts is amusing to say the least! I liked the recipes for old fashioned aftershaves (using Bay Rum) but I've unfortunately found that pure alcohol for making beauty products is not terribly easy to acquire in Australia.

The sewing projects are well designed  if unoriginal and I liked the patchwork blanket made of old flannelette shirt and the cushion made of old neck ties. Neither idea  is new, but they are well executed. The Globe made into a lamp and wine corks turned cork board are also great products but could easily be made without tutorials. It's a book that would be useful perhaps for a school or those new to recycled crafts, but there is a level of assumed knowledge in ability in regard to projects such as machine sewing and decoupage.