Crafting Personal Shrines: Using Photos, Mementos & Treasures to Create Artful Displays [Hardcover]

I picked this book up at the library, but had to buy my own copy after reluctantly turning it in after having it four weeks and renewing it once.

The illustrations of the unique, beautiful shrines and shadow boxes created by the artists are worth the price of the book even if you never make one.

I'm no whiz at crafting, but the instructions are so simple, easy to understand and clearly written that I made 2 shrines in less than 2 weeks in my spare time. Each example has several variations and each shrine has an easy to understand material list. The instructions were even easy enough for a man to follow. LOL!

If you love collage, you'll love this book. It's a wonderful way to take collaging a step further to a 3 dimensional, inexpensive medium that can become a collector's item or family heirloom.

I highly recommend this book!

when a publisher does not provide a 'look inside' preview of a book (and i mean more than just the 'Table of Contents' and 'Index') i fear that the book is not worth any amount of money - that's the reason they don't want to give you a peek between the covers. if letting potential customers look inside a book would increase sales no publisher would pass up the opportunity to do so. this is one of those times when i was disappointment immediately after opening the book : if i could have looked through it i never would have purchased it

the first potential problem is that the book demonstrates using foamcore exclusively. yes, foamcore. foamcore is not the material most people will want to use. if you don't have woodworking tools, or access to various discarded boxes to adapt to assemblage, foamcore might be perfect for you. that is for you to decide. personally i would not use this material as these structures are not sturdy enough for me, plus they look, well, tacky-cheap

next, the first two projects are all you really need (if you need such instructions at all, which i doubt)

last, the rest of the instruction is nothing more than making a series of specific dimensional variations. all the various projects could have been reduced to one detailed 'how-to' followed by a collection of completed project photos for readers to consider, and modify to their own dimensions, rather than showing the same steps over and over. once you've read the first project you've got it mastered. having someone spell out dimensions for various configurations is almost certainly too basic for most people ... you'll want to build to fit the scale of embellishments you have to work with, (right ?) rather than arbitrary dimensions from a book

so what good things can i say about the book ? there was a limited attempt to show what actual artists do in assemblage (none of which use foamcore, by the way) but as artists tend to work in batches, the projects from each tend to look very much alike ... not a serious problem, but something to consider. variations on a theme may help you get ideas for your own 'personal shrine' - only you can say whether this is a good thing for you, or not

in summation, so much space was wasted on the dimensions of various projects that few will actually build, and so little inspiration made available to the readers, that i would be hard-pressed to recommend this book : two stars for a book that will help those who cannot use power tools for any of the various reasons, and those who need the most fundamental of training

but not quite as helpful as I'd hoped. The style is very artsy and very collage. And there were not many ideas for decorating the shrine with personal memorabilia. The artists' section at the back is interesting, but not really inspiring to me personally. The instructions were excellent, the photos confused me a bit putting the shadowbox openings together, but other than that they were great. I will definitely be using the book to build a personal or gift shrine, but for decorating inspiration I might turn elsewhere. Would have liked more photos, more momentos.

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