Review: Not My Taste But Good Value For The Price.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2012
I was disappointed in "Christmas Gifts They'll Actually Like."  Some gifts were fairly obvious--give homemade food items. Recipes and photos were included, but anyone who cooks well enough to give homemade foods as a gift likely already has these or similar recipes already. I found some of the craft items to be odd or tacky. Why would I buy small canning jars, short glass candle sticks, glue the candle sticks to the bottom of the canning jars, and then give them as wine glasses to someone?  It would be cheaper and easier to buy wine glasses on sale. Also, if someone gave me a votive candle holder with wine corks glued around it, I would probably think they either hated me or thought I had the world's worst taste in home decor. Now if the corks were still in the bottles of wine, that would be a different story.I will give the authors the benefit of the doubt on some of the crafts I found to be odd or tacky, though, because I have had friends who loved that sort of thing. I once had a friend who converted a used wine bottle into a hideous lamp and was thrilled that she didn't have to go into a store to buy a lamp. Mind you, by the time she bought the electrical parts, the lamp shade hardware  and the lamp shade, she could have bought at least two attractive-looking lamps in a store or thrift shop.Some of the ideas were good or alright, though, especially ones for children to make. I got this book for free, but the regular price of $0.99 is reasonable for the contents. If I had paid that price, I would have felt I got my money's worth.Not everyone will like this book. I can't say that I actually liked it, but I think a lot of people would. Not all of us like the same things or have the same tastes, so I am sure that some people would think I was odd for not liking a lot of the ideas.  Heck, most people liked my friend's wine-bottle lamp.