6 books to inspire you to make things with your hands

There are times when you just need inspiration and ideas to get you started on your creative journeys. Whether you’re somebody looking for a new hobby or a creative professional feeling stuck, books not only let you, as one English author puts it, “go through into another world.” Books show us how to look at things a little differently and find something unexpected. These arts and crafts books from the Mess Studio library do just that while also celebrating the beauty of handmade items and setting our imagination in motion. Find your next hobby, project, or spark to make something from their pages. Give it a try!

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Jewellery Making Techniques by Vannetta Seecharran

The past few decades have seen jewelry makers taking on non-traditional materials and if you’re also exploring making jewelry using fabric, fibers, wire, paper pulp and other materials (like our maker Nike Nadal-Reyes with Nyuki’s crochet earrings), this book is sure to give you some ideas. It also has helpful step-by-step guides and techniques on how to work with those different materials to be adapted to jewelry making. 

Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Scheinberger

This ‘guide to drawing, painting, and storytelling in color’ shows us that creating things with watercolor lies in finding a balance between control and letting go—which is also a good way to look at creating art or making crafts in general. The author, a prolific German artist, admits that since there is a certain degree of uncertainty when you’re using watercolor (the medium tends to do what it wants), it can teach us to see more of what we felt or sensed.

While the book gives both painters and urban sketchers accessible watercolor techniques and principles of watercolor paints to bring one’s sketches to life, it also highlights finding your own style. (You can also get tips on finding your own art style with Jill Arteche, here.)

Sewing Green by Betz White

Have you always been curious about making your own clothes? Sewing is not only a way to have your very own unique piece of clothing or accessory, it’s also become an eco-friendly alternative to excessive consumption. The book promotes even using what’s already there—from your closet to thrift shops. Much like how Jodee Aguillon of Glorious Dias thrifts and reworks vintage clothing. 

There are 25 projects, from items like trivets and beach bags to clothing like lounge pants and a reversible wrap skirt, that can expand your creativity and resourcefulness.

Vintage Collage Works by Maryjo and Sunny Koch

Whatever type of art you’re making, the process often reveals something to the artist. In collage making, you get to use different materials around you—from letters and postcards to pressed botanicals and boxes. All of them can be transformed, pressed, layered, affixed on your collage, as your imagination dictates, which doesn’t require perfection. Each chapter features techniques to help you create your collages and personalize it as you see fit.

Sharpie Art Workshop by Timothy Goodman

“Art is whatever you can get away with. No rules.” This is one of the guiding principles of this fun book, which shows how a permanent marker like a Sharpie can make for a different kind of art and inspire even "the nonartists" who want to express themselves. More than that, it explores the need for play, refining one’s work, doodling as art, taking the expected to make it unexpected, and techniques. The book feels like a shock to the system, but in an exciting way. It’s definitely one to pick up in the library when you’re feeling stuck or in need of a creative jolt.

An Introduction to Drawing by Robin Hazlewood

While this is more of an instructional book with techniques and exercises to dispense, it reiterates that learning to draw the world around us is being able to look at it "in a different way from that in which you normally do." It’s good for those starting to draw, to learn about perspectives, tone and form, figures, landscapes, etc. It also reminds us that drawing, beyond the rules and techniques, can be a way to learn more about yourself.

When you do try something, to draw, to make, to sew, or create, you get to set things in motion. And a lot of times, that’s what matters. Being able to do something and not letting fear stop us from even trying. 

The Mess Studio is located at the ground floor of the Atrium, Makati Ave., Makati City