Shitty Craft Club is a warmly humorous multi-craftsy inspirational romp by Sam Reece. Released 19th Sept 2023 by Chronicle Books, it's 144 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.
This is such an incredibly enthusiastic, bubbly, fun, and freeing book. Sam is like the coolest babysitter, who made popcorn and let you stay up and watch *almost* scary movies when you were 12 years old. She's quite funny, and so relatable, slightly off-kilter but genuinely and enthusiastically dedicated to making crafting accessible and *fun* for everyone.
Humans need creativity. Living ever more specialized and busy lives, quite often more isolated from one another (especially with and after the pandemic) has left most of us struggling to find time to do anything creative. This book is a nice reminder to grab some crafts supplies and "just do it".
Spontaneity is foremost, and the process is a significant part of the therapeutic value of crafting. This book is *full* of sparkle and glitter and very colorful. The aesthetic is youthful and fun, occasionally frenetic, but always fun.
Chapters are arranged somewhat thematically: an intro (with discussion of her crafting philosophy and how-we-got-here), you-can-do-it crafting even for people who don't think they can, appreciating the things readers do in their daily lives and building community by showing everyone procrastinates, defeating perfectionism, pom-pom crafts, beads, community, personal attributes (being gay is a craft), holidays (sort of), corn (!?), and social events/crafting with friends.
In addition to the stream-of-consciousness humorous monologue, which actually often shades into near profundity, each chapter contains one or more tutorial projects. They, much like the book, are enthusiastic and colorful. I don't know how many I would really want to display in my actual house, but the point of the book is for readers to free themselves to embrace creativity without too much perfectionism, and in that, it succeeds spectacularly.
Four stars. Funny and fun. Probably more suited to young urban 30somethings than to serious artists doing art and not having much fun doing it.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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