The Best of Making Things

A Handbook of Creative Discovery

Why go to the mall when you can make things at home using materials recycled from around the house?

This classic educational and creative text features 125 projects, carefully selected by the author to “develop natural curiosity and self-esteem,” and to demonstrate “simple and important concepts that have shaped the cultures of the world.”

So when a child asks, “What can I do?” you can reply, “Make things! Paper from laundry lint! A bird feeder from clothes hangers! Chocolate pudding finger paintings! Beautiful fish & potato prints! A cardboard box loom that teaches weaving and math! A simple pattern to sew shirts, pants, or dresses!”

The author’s detailed and delightful drawings fill every page “so that children just starting out and grownups who have missed out can quickly grasp the ideas.”

About the Author
Ann Sayre Wiseman developed this book while Program Director of the Boston Children’s Museum Visitor’s Center. A therapist, teacher, mother, and grandmother, Ms. Wiseman has written more than a dozen books. She is also an artist with work in the Rockefeller and Hirschorn collections, among others.

Consistently the most useful book I’ve used with kids . . .[it] has been, and still is, my bible.

—CathyWilson, author, mother of nine homeschooled kids, and teacher of youth in custody

Fresh and inspiring. . . . The majority of the ingenious projects are not found in other craft books.

—Library Journal, starred review