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Oregon Family Magazine

Literary Duck Summer Fun with Klutz

06/27/2011 ● By Anonymous
School is out and the kids need something to do! Literary Duck shares their recommendation for fun with Klutz.

Friendship Pixies: Charmed Little Dolls to Make & Share Karen Phillips

Bend some wire to form a body, wrap it with colorful raffia clothing, and add sparkly yarn hair. You've just made a friendship pixie! Finished pixies are cute, flexible, and great listeners. But that's not all. They're also just a little bit magic. That's because each pixie gets a sparkly charm that shows the exact wishes she delivers. If a friend is moving away, make a pixie charmed with laughter and love. For your Mom who is afraid of flying, make one with courage and confidence. And if you have a big math test, why not make yourself a pixie charmed with success and smarts? Friendship Pixies comes with everything you need to make eight adorable dolls in eight matchbox-style gift boxes. An assortment of perfectly sized decorative papers makes it easy to decorate the boxes inside and out. Whether you give your pixie as a gift or keep her close to your heart, she'll radiate a magical combination of sweetness, charm, and encouragement -- which is an awful lot to fit inside a matchbox. See? Magic. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Make Your Own Music Video Kaitlyn Nichols

Unleash your creativity (and just a little bit of rock star attitude). It's an online phenomenon. Kids everywhere have discovered that the quickest path to rock-stardom does not involve after-school recorder lessons or lugging a tuba on the school bus. Skip right to the fun stuff and go directly for the glory – star in a music video. Whether you lip-sync or play your own tunes, with Make Your Own Music Video you can create an awesome video starring your awesome self. Learn how to develop storyboards. Add drama with special angles and clever camera tricks. Deliver blockbuster special effects on a weekly allowance budget. Whether your style is country, pop, hip-hop, or headbangin' rock, our free editing software will make you look like the video star of the year. All you need is a basic video camera and a dream. In addition to the software, the book comes with a green screen. This humble swatch of technological magic allows you to swap out the green background for any imagery you choose. Pick one of the 25 backgrounds we provide, or put yourself in any setting you want -- all from the comfort of your own family room. Rock on! (Publisher’s Marketing)

Chalk the Block M. Sherman

Consider the street where you live. Buildings, sidewalks, a tree here and there... looks fine but what's missing? That's right – the jokes! Where are the antics in your area? The parodies in your proximity? The tomfoolery in your territory? Never fear, it's all right here. Chalk the Block is a handbook of inspired lunacy packaged with a set of chalk. There are no elaborate chalk art projects in this book, nor nostalgic hopscotch games. It's just the jokes, folks, and every one of them is easy to execute, simple to draw, and guaranteed to bring a smile to passersby. Armed with just a few sticks of chalk and a quick wit, our resident funny guy Michael Sherman can make anyone into a one-person neighborhood improvement committee. Of course, the laughs are terrific but temporary, since the chalk washes off with the first summer shower or sprinkler session. Like all the best humor, it's a "you had to be there" kind of thing. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Safety Pin Bracelets Kit Kaitlyn Nichols

Klutz has a proud history of publishing amazing jewelry books featuring unusual materials. Our readers have made glossy bands out of goo, beads out of paper, even jewelry that shrinks in the oven. Ready to be amazed again? Safety Pin Bracelets shows how anyone can craft an entire collection of brilliantly sparkling jewelry out of garden-variety safety pins. The book includes 12 unique bracelet designs. From waves that swirl around your wrist, to fancy fan shapes, to pixilated pictures that look like bead mosaics, all the styles give the humble safety pin unprecedented glamour. Whichever design you choose, you pick the colors and patterns so each bracelet is uniquely you. Super-simple, step-by-step directions are fully illustrated for Klutz-quality clarity. And, of course, the book comes complete with everything you need: hundreds of safety pins in three different sizes, over a thousand glass beads in vibrant colors, and stretchy silver cord. Finally, open-and-shut blister packaging keeps all your craft supplies organized and neat as, well, a pin. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Mix and Match Drawing: A Step-By-Step Drawing Studio Editors of Klutz

Typical drawing books show how to draw something — a horse, for example, or maybe a car — in solitary splendor on a blank white page. But wouldn’t you rather learn how to draw a complete scene, so that the horse can be driving the car, down a freeway, next to the ocean? So much better! Cats in space, hippos in the lunchroom, pirates on the playground — we’ve got you covered. The book’s three sections are crammed with simple step-by-steps for drawing all kinds of Creatures & Characters, Objects, and Backgrounds. Hand pick your projects to combine the perfect elements for a conventional scene, or flip through the book at random to create complete craziness. Either way, you’ll draw a drawing that has never been drawn before. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Fabulous Flowers: Create Pretty Paper Blossoms Anne Akers-Johnson

Here at Klutz, everything's coming up roses. And daisies. And daffodils and poppies and, well, you get the idea. Introducing Fabulous Flowers, our latest foray into the world of paper crafts. This 60-page book is filled with can't-go-wrong instructions for making paper flowers that are, quite possibly, even prettier than the real thing. A custom winding-tool makes it easy to roll and shape paper petals into dimensional, life-sized blossoms inspired by some of our favorite flowers: roses, daisies, daffodils, poppies, even sweet peas. But we didn't stop there. Sparkly embellishments, fresh paper colors, and whimsical design variations give these blooms a twist that's pure Klutz. As always, we've packaged the book with everything you need to get started: 20 pages of ready-to-punch-out paper petals, sparkly flower centers, wrapped wire stems, glue, and of course, the custom winding tool -- enough stuff to make bunches of flowers. It's not easy to improve on Mother Nature but, with all due modesty, we're pretty sure we've done just that. (Publisher’s Marketing)

The Klutz Guide to the Galaxy Pat Murphy with the Scientists of the Klutz Labs

When the scientists at Klutz Labs tackle outer space, questions like "where's the Big Dipper?" are just the beginning. We also ponder important stuff like "How likely is it that a meteor will fall from the sky and squash me flat?" and "If I lived on Mercury, am I already old enough to drive?" and "Why do they call them MoonPies?" With The Klutz Guide to the Galaxy, you can explore the universe without leaving the comfort of your backyard. Assemble the included telescope to see the Moon's top attractions. Flick on the red-lense flashlight -- specially designed to keep your night vision intact -- to consult the Tourist Map of the Moon and super-simple star charts. Tell time with a star, using the book's built-in sundial. Or use the astrolab to figure out your latitude anywhere on Earth. And when someone asks what you did on your vacation, you can say, "Oh, I explored the edge of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy." (In other words, our solar system.) You sound outrageously intergalactic yet still totally truthful. Isn't science great? (Publisher’s Marketing)

Klutz Book of Animation: Make Your Own Stop Motion Movies John Cassidy and Nicholas Berger

Welcome to the wide-open world of animation. It used to take an empire the size of the Magic Kingdom to make an animated film. And to get viewers, you'd need access to cineplexes or television networks. In other words, you were either in the industry or in the audience. That was then. Today, creating animation for a potential audience of 600 million requires a laptop, a camera, and an internet connection. That's it. The barriers have come down, the people have taken over, and the results are amazing. The Klutz Book of Animation is a complete how-to treatment of this newly accessible art form. It combines practical instruction and ready-to-shoot scripts. Real-life samples of all the projects are viewable online -- the perfect marriage of book and web. Speaking of web, the software you'll need is available as a free download. It's plug and play on any computer (PC or Mac). Attached to the book is a piece of low-tech, non-toxic clay, ready to be molded into a million different heroes starring in a million different films -- all of them animatedly yours. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Doctor Frankensketch’s Monster Drawing Machine

After years of unanswered e-mails and phone messages, we've finally managed to get the infamous Dr. Frankensketch to reveal his monster drawing technique. We're happy to say it was well worth the wait. Now you, too, can piece together one-of-akind monsters and then draw them into mutant life!

Just like his slightly more famous cousin, Dr. Frankenstein, Frankensketch started by collecting parts of other creatures -- the legs of a skeleton, the torso of a gorilla, the head of a rabid, one-eyed, space-alien octopus, and so on. Lay those parts into the patented Monster Drawing machine, a covered tray that securely holds them in the formation of one beastly body. Now trace your monster and laugh maniacally as lightning flashes in the sky! (That last bit isn't really necessary, but it's a nice effect.) The book includes 20 complete monsters ready to be punched into interchangeable body parts. Plus a pile of tracing paper to make a host of new monster friends. And, of course, the most important tool of all, the pencil. The whole thing is scary simple and frightfully fun. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Sticker Design Studio Karen Phillips

Girls stick stickers on everything: binders, birthday cards, diaries, door signs, love notes, lunch bags -- whatever needs a little coolification. It's like putting your personal mark on the world. But to make your mark truly personal, stick with Sticker Design Studio. The book is packed with over 500 cute die-cut designs you mix, match, color, and layer to create your own unique stickers. Glittery accents provide that all-important sparkle, while light gray line work gives just the right amount of artistic help. Once they are inked over, the lines become nearly invisible -- so only your creative genius shows. Since each design can be completed in countless ways, each finished sticker can be completely unique. In addition to ready-to-color stickers, the book features colorful pages of tips, inspiration, and guided creativity to encourage the artistically un-gifted. Even if you can't draw a heart, you can still ink one in your own unique style. And when you're done, it's not just a doodle in a page, it's a one-of-a-kind sparkly seal. Your heart is sticker art! (Publisher’s Marketing)

Rubberband Powered Flying Machines Pat Murphy

The art and science of aviation, conveniently delivered in a rubber band. You may remember rubber band planes from your own flying days, made out of equal parts of balsa wood and frustration. Forget 'em. Klutz has reinvented the airplane. In the high-flying tradition of The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes, Rubber Band Flying Machines gives kids everything they need to fly like a pro, indoors or out. Simple directions explain how to assemble the planes from the included parts and, just as importantly, how to fly them for maximum performance. All the planes have been carefully engineered for coolness, from the Firebird, with its 19-inch wingspan, to the acrobatic Lightning Looper, to the Shooting Star, which makes such tight turns you can fly it in the living room. These planes are easy to build and tough enough to survive crash landings and fly again and again. (We know this from experience.) And, by experimenting with the variations described in the book, junior aviators will learn basic principles of aerodynamics and physics. Don't tell them that, though. Let them think they're just having a blast. (Publisher’s Marketing)

Visit the Kids Corner at Literary Duck for reading recommendations for kids of all ages.