Garden Crafts: A Practical Guide to Creating Handcrafted Features for Your Garden
Sophisticated, artfully rustic, sometimes practical but more often purely fun, the sculptural garden adornments presented here are leagues beyond the cutesiness of many garden crafts. There are no flowery painted birdhouses or little welcome signs; instead we find abstract wire spider webs, weathered wooden benches, elaborate willow trellises, glistening stone mosaics, and shimmering structures of glass. The bulk of the book concentrates on the history of artistic garden adornment and showcases stunning examples, both historic and contemporary. How-to hints are included for a dozen projects, most of which require fairly advanced crafting skills, including a wildwood bench, whimsical mosaic people, and a massive slate urn built with the techniques of dry-stone walling. For the adventurous, this volume offers lots of unique ideas.--Amy Handy