Of all the holidays, Halloween, for me, seems to lend itself best to fun crafts (lots of easy crafts, too). I am always happy to find easy-to-follow craft books with cute ideas and a lot of photos, so when Quirk Books asked if I was interested in reviewing Witch Craft: Wicked Accessories, Creepy-Cute Toys, Magical Treats and More, I jumped at the chance. It’s a compilation (by Margaret McGuire and Alicia Kachmar) of crafts by lots of talented folks, many of them with handmade shops. Yes!

I am not exaggerating when I say that Elena and Rosa pick up this book every day and read it like a regular book. I think they love the photos, which are great. There are also very sweet illustrations of bats and ghosts and pumpkins and witches by Alison Oliver throughout the book.

I asked the girls to pick their favorite projects. Rosa told me she likes these plushie poison apples:

And Elena came home from school one day last week and told me she signed up to learn how to crochet in art class so that she could make this Good Little Witch from the book:

But they were most excited to make the potions jars:

So we did (well, our version of them, anyway):

We found these great bottles at the craft store. The girls made some other funny potions in old soda bottles, including dragon blood and my favorite, goblin spit (it’s yellow – did you know that?).

The book includes nice, lengthy bios of the contributors and links to their shops as well as to other craft supply shops.  Online, you can get downloads and see more pictures of the crafts included in the book. Take a look.

You want to know what the best part is? Quirk is offering a copy of the book to one of you lucky readers! Leave a comment below by next Monday (October 18). I will use random.org to pick a winner and announce it next Tuesday, October 19.

Sound good? Of course it does! Good luck – this is a great book.

Images from book courtesy of Quirk Books