Nature Craft by Fiona Hayes

In this beautifully illustrated book of crafts the author has used simple readily available items to create items children will enjoy making. Teachers, parents, camp counsellors and others looking for craft ideas will find this an easy to follow guide. Perhaps taking children out on a scavenger hunt in the yard before beginning a project would enhance the experience.

Seeds, nuts, coconuts, rocks, twigs, feathers, pinecones, acorns, seeds and other items along with yarn, elastic bands, glue, paint and other items most of us have nearby are used to create masks, animals, plants, insects and more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing-QEB for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

I wanted to have a look at this book because of the cover with some colourful crafts and hoped to find more cool ideas inside of the book. I of course my hopes were not disappointed and I was surprised that you could really find most of the materials outside your door or they were at least easy to get. The instructions were easy to understand and there was always a nice photo too. Some things I especially liked were the angels and the cacti which would look really good as house decoration. I can recommend this book to everyone who has kids, likes the nature and would like to craft something with them.

A wonderfully fun book for all ages, especially great for early and pre-school ages. Using pinecones, feathers, shells and other nature bits you can pick up, with loads of full colour pictures to explain how-to.

What a brilliant little book. Lots of ideas of things to make with bits and pieces you can find on a walk anywhere. The little animals are easy to make by little fingers and the illustrations easy to follow. These are the sorts of things my grand daughters love to make when we bring home a bag of fir cones and colourful leaves. A great way to get children learning about nature and finding little treasures when we are out and about. My personal favourite are the snails made from sea shells. A great decoration for pot plants.

With the school holidays upon us again, this book will help fill in some time for the youngster. Starting maybe with a walk in the country to collect some of the materials, coming home sorting and finally making some of these fun creatures and masks the are described in this book. Easy to make, lots of fun and healthy timesharing.
Something for all ages, and I think even older children will find something to make. The items don't need supervising, well explained with step by step pictures, and each item builds up with skill levels.
Make a lovely gift.

This book is adorable! I’ve come across so many kid’s craft books that contain instructions that I doubt I could follow, let alone the child that’s supposed to be able to construct the marvellous creations. Thankfully this isn’t one of those books.

With step by step instructions accompanied by step by step illustrations and photos of the final masterpieces this is the type of book that makes me want to borrow one of your kids so I’m not the only one having fun making all of this cuteness. There are also templates included for the shapes you need to cut out. I love that the basics of each project come from nature so there’s a built in excuse to wander outside and rummage for an assortment of items including feathers, twigs and seashells.

While each project also requires additional crafty items there’s nothing overly expensive on any of the lists and a lot of items are used for multiple projects. Besides the items specific to each project you’ll also need:
* PVA glue or a cool-melt glue gun
* Paint
* Paint brushes
* Felt-tip pens
* Pencils
* Scissors
* Ruler.

The animal projects in this book are “Aww!” worthy with sweet little faces and googly eyes. I can definitely see kids wanting to make these for themselves and if I was a parent my kidlet would earn a serious amount of brownie points if I received any of these critters as a gift.

I anticipate this book being a hit with parents, babysitters, teachers and child care workers, along with adults like me who will most likely be pretending we’re buying the items at the craft store for our non-existent children. I want to make the owl, the tortoise, the rabbit, the dragonfly, the mice, the penguins, the tree frogs, the lizard, the hedgehog, the dinosaur, the mushrooms… Okay, fine! I want to make everything!

If you’re like me and your crafty enthusiasm outweighs your crafty expertise then it looks like the worst that could happen is that your finished critter will have more character than intended. I can definitely see a craft day with my mother coming soon.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group - QEB for the opportunity to read this book.

Take a rainy day and all the wonderful leaves, pine cones, stones, feathers, etc. that your kids brought home from their trips through nature and create something artsy within a few steps. From bird masks, to clay snails and pine cone animals, stick trees and snowflakes, there is something for every season.

Beautifully illustrated, step-by-step to 40 craft nature projects. The projects use very few basic items and tools. Other similar books have put me off with their long lists of hard-to-find items and equipment. As each step is explained in clear, simple language with full colour photos as a visual guide, it would be very hard to go wrong.

Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.

Fun colorful crafts for all ages to enjoy, made from sticks, shells, pine cones and other gifts of nature. Great for people who teach/craft with young crafters.

There were a lot of great ideas for kids crafts in this book. While I would definitely purchase this for the library, I don't think I would be able to use most of the crafts during a program, because of where my library is located and the nature available to us.

This is a really nifty book that shows you how to make different animals using a mixture of materials. My nieces and nephews would love making some of these and all the materials can be sourced easily.

I enjoyed this book very much. It gave me great ideas for crafts with my camp kids. We can make two activities: gathering nature and then doing art. The instructions are clear and pictures are provided. Some crafts needed parental help, but those could be done as prep before giving them to my children.
I liked that there was an introduction to materials but it needed to be more comprehensive as there were things I had no idea what she was talking about. What is a helicopter seed and where does it come from?
Overall, this is a great book of nature crafts!

This nicely illustrated and photographed book offers lots of projects for smaller children. Using natural elements (sticks, pine cones, feathers) along with purchased materials (felt, paper, googly eyes), this book includes instructions for making lots of forest critters and a couple of masks. Instructions for making sheep and angels are particularly helpful for Sunday School teachers. This book would be good for teachers who want to use a few natural elements but also want to use more traditional crafting materials.

A very good book full of interesting and well explained projects for children. I really liked the way they are presented and the explenations.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Quarto Publishing and Netgalley for this ARC

A collection of fun animal related crafts that can be made out of things made in nature, including pine cones, shells, twigs, etc. All of the crafts do also require non-nature related materials. Wasn't as excited by it as I initially thought I'd be, but some of the crafts did look fun.

I am really excited about this book!
As a family we are often out and about, when were on the beach we collect shells , in the forest we collect sticks and cones, in the autumn we collect leaves. However, we have noting to do with them, until now..
This book is filled with 40 brilliant projects for children of a variety of ages to try.
I have to say i am in love with the snails and the squirrel !
Really lovely activities with clear simple instructions.
Nature Craft would make a perfect gift in itself as would some of the projects inside.
All in all a fabulous book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.