Whatever art you practice, chances are you're going to come across image transfer techniques. These valuable techniques allow you to reproduce a unique image from any source and apply it to a myriad of surfaces. The options are endless! Playing with Image Transfers is a beautiful and helpful resource that will teach you the four image transfer methods: Packing Tape, Solvent, Medium, and Acrylic transfers, while highlighting basic methods and offering projects across a range of interests and applications. You'll learn how to make beautiful items, including gift boxes, albums, sketchbook covers, wall art, accordion books, and much more. Once you've mastered the techniques, you'll also explore multiple surfaces as a base for transferring - wood, fabric, paper, canvas, and book forms. A beautiful gallery will show the use of image transfers in a wide variety of high-end artistic works to get your creative juices flowing. The "Considerations" in each chapter offer suggestions on how a single project can be expanded or further adapted if you're looking to challenge yourself past the basics. By the time you finish this informative book, you'll be well-equipped to use your own images in your creative work.

The elegant pen-strokes and visual harmony of Chinese writing, known as hanzi, have long been admired in the west. Classical Chinese calligraphy is a popular and valuable art form, and with the increasing economic and cultural power of China, its writing is becoming more widely appreciated and understood. In particular, the deep layers of history and symbolism which exist behind even the most everyday character have a strong appeal to those seeking understanding from an alternative philosophy. Chinese Characters: The Art of Hanzi features the most interesting of the three to four thousand characters are needed to write modern Chinese. Characters expressing concepts such as love, peace, respect and happiness are reproduced in a large format, enabling the reader to trace, scan or photocopy them for transfer to any other medium. Alongside the character is an accessible and inspiring explanation of how the character developed, what the particular strokes symbolize, and its various different meanings.

Not only does it contain full place settings, flowers, centrepieces and everything else for tables for 25 different occasions, it also offers more than 50 mouth-watering recipes and shows you how to make table elements such as napkin rings, name tags, boxes for favours, place mats and other decorative accessories. Practical information on basic planning, from compiling a mood board and finding unusual under plates to selecting music and finding the perfect guest favour, is complemented by extended captions providing the know-how to replicate the settings. A separate section contains full recipes as well as instructions and templates for DIY ideas not detailed in captions. Hints and tips on presentation techniques, scheduling tasks to ensure that you can be relaxed and enjoy your guests and ways to add a personal touch abound.