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Witch Crafts: 101 Projects for Creative Pagans
Book by Polson, Willow
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 2002
1 person is currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Willow Polson
9 books25 followersWillow's major in college was Art, and while at SFSU to get a teaching credential she was hired by EGW Publishing as a graphic artist. When an assistant editor position opened up, she was pretty much hired on the spot. From there, she helped develop new titles, became a department editor, and eventually a managing editor.
After the birth of her son, she went freelance and successfully sold five non-fiction books to Citadel, a Kensington Publishing imprint, as well as multiple magazine articles to various publications.
Willow's first love, however, was always fantasy novels. Non-fiction, while a perfectly valid market, wasn't entirely satisfying to write about. Then she read Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, and figured there was no reason that she couldn't write fiction books, tell stories that readers would enjoy, and have a lot of fun in the process. Turns out that's a pretty good combination.
After the birth of her son, she went freelance and successfully sold five non-fiction books to Citadel, a Kensington Publishing imprint, as well as multiple magazine articles to various publications.
Willow's first love, however, was always fantasy novels. Non-fiction, while a perfectly valid market, wasn't entirely satisfying to write about. Then she read Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, and figured there was no reason that she couldn't write fiction books, tell stories that readers would enjoy, and have a lot of fun in the process. Turns out that's a pretty good combination.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 17, 2011
Witch Crafts / 0-8065-2247-X
To date, I have found about three guides on Wiccan craft projects, and these guides are all fairly disappointing; this one is definitely the most disappointing of them all; this is probably the best one of all.
"Witch Crafts" is organized around categories of crafting, such as candle making, and provides several projects, each with an increasing level of difficulty. This approach manages to make "Witch Crafts" accessible to novices and experts alike, without being too shallow. Color pictures are included for a few of the projects, although the pictures are always of the finished version of the project, and there aren't many intermediate stages shown for each project. For the most part, the written instructions are clear enough that the lack of more pictures isn't too crippling.
The quilting section is mediocre compared to a serious quilting book, but there is a gorgeous square-block quilt "painting" of antlers horns framing a full moon against a midnight blue sky. The instructions are clear enough and the color picture is helpful enough that this quilt makes up for any lack of variety. The same is true for the Greenman cross-stitch project - it's far better to have one really good project than 20 crummy projects, in my opinion.
This book does contain crafts made from animal by-products; I'm not a leatherworker, so I skipped over those, but the book didn't seem any shorter to me. What I'd like to see in a future edition would be more pictures (including finished pictures for *all* projects and intermediate stage pictures to explain the creation process), more "decorating" crafts like bed quilts and wall hangings and clothing and so forth, and fewer "ritual" crafts for things that I only use once a month. However, this is a good resource, and I recommend it if you can find it for about $10-15.
~ Ana Mardoll
To date, I have found about three guides on Wiccan craft projects, and these guides are all fairly disappointing; this one is definitely the most disappointing of them all; this is probably the best one of all.
"Witch Crafts" is organized around categories of crafting, such as candle making, and provides several projects, each with an increasing level of difficulty. This approach manages to make "Witch Crafts" accessible to novices and experts alike, without being too shallow. Color pictures are included for a few of the projects, although the pictures are always of the finished version of the project, and there aren't many intermediate stages shown for each project. For the most part, the written instructions are clear enough that the lack of more pictures isn't too crippling.
The quilting section is mediocre compared to a serious quilting book, but there is a gorgeous square-block quilt "painting" of antlers horns framing a full moon against a midnight blue sky. The instructions are clear enough and the color picture is helpful enough that this quilt makes up for any lack of variety. The same is true for the Greenman cross-stitch project - it's far better to have one really good project than 20 crummy projects, in my opinion.
This book does contain crafts made from animal by-products; I'm not a leatherworker, so I skipped over those, but the book didn't seem any shorter to me. What I'd like to see in a future edition would be more pictures (including finished pictures for *all* projects and intermediate stage pictures to explain the creation process), more "decorating" crafts like bed quilts and wall hangings and clothing and so forth, and fewer "ritual" crafts for things that I only use once a month. However, this is a good resource, and I recommend it if you can find it for about $10-15.
~ Ana Mardoll
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July 28, 2011Meh. There is nothing really wrong with this book, it is in fact a collection of crafts of a pagan/wiccan nature. But there is really nothing special here either. Nothing here for advanced crafters though it might be of some use to those who rarely make anything. Most of the crafts are standard non-wiccan crafts with slightly wiccan-y touches. Very little here is creative or new -- if you know basic techniques for jewelry making, pottery, knitting, sewing, and candlemaking then you could probably come up with these ideas yourself. Also the instructions are often rushed an unclear. For some of her projects there is no picture of what the entire thing looks like when done, only line sketches or a partial photo so layout is lost and the instructions are hard on those who need visuals. Basically this is the same stuff you could find in any craft book, except this book tells you to use a picture of the green man instead of something else.
August 19, 2013
Some nice ideas, some impractical ones or just less nice ones. All in all not too bad, but I am pleased I borrowed this book from the library. If I bought it I'd probably be considerably less pleased with it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews