Product Description

Culled from the best of the "Good Things" columns in Martha Stewart Living magazine, this book offers a varied selection of wonderful crafts projects, recipes, hints for home decorating, organizing, and gift-giving. 200 color photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179220 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-29
• Released on: 1997-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Amazon.com Review
Martha Stewart's decorating ideas are deceptively simple. The materials are readily available and the instructions are easy, masking the sophistication it takes to realize the simplistic beauty of a plain white plate with a single maple leaf as a place card. "Good Things" is what Martha Stewart calls the "easy tips" segment of her television show, and, in fact, all of the tips in this book are remarkably easy (at least, in comparison to some of her other projects). Martha's potato, sweet potato, and onion latkes are remarkably good, and are particularly recommended for those who may still doubt whether they can match Martha in their own kitchens.

From the Inside Flap
Culled from the best of the "Good Things" columns in Martha Stewart Living magazine, this book offers a varied selection of wonderful crafts projects, recipes, hints for home decorating, organizing, and gift-giving. 200 color photos.

Customer Reviews

Projects are elegant and simple, yet make a statement.
For any Martha Stewart fan, a must. This is a collection of her easiest projects, yet they really pack a punch. Try giving someone a gift wrapped in a paper bag tied with raffia and a fall leaf gift tag with their name written in gold ink. Faster than all that tape and expensive paper, and just see how impressed they will be with such a simple statement. The book is full of ideas like this. And they can be translated from one use to another. (You never entertain and use place cards? Try those ideas for gift tags.) The book is slightly overpriced for a softbound volume, but it it worth it not having to wade through three years of Marth Stewart Living trying to remember what issue that pilow project you are thinking of was in.

The Essential Martha
In the introduction to this book, Martha Stewart defines what she and her staff consider a "good thing". It must be uncomplicated, useful, aesthetically pleasing, interesting, pertinent, unusual, and done with materials that are easily found. I would say that about 75% of the projects in this book meet those criteria as I would apply them.

The book is well organized into seven sections: entertaining, cooking, celebrating, giving, gardening, decorating, and homekeeping. I found useful ideas in each section - some sections were better than others for me - but even the ones of lesser interest to me were still lovely to look at. At the end of the book, Stewart includes a source guide for most of the materials used in this book.

I especially liked the kitchen tips (in the cooking section); the easy instruction for handmade soaps; tole painting on tin buckets; and the organizing hints which included record-keeping.

Some of the ideas did not appeal to me at all (like gluing live ivy leaves along the edges of a tablecloth, making a linen table-sized mat, making linen basket liners, and constructing wraps for bottles) but then again, they were fun to look at!

The beautiful arrangement of this book and its photos made it worth buying.

The literary bon-bon from Martha
This book puts the best of the best right where you need them. I have used this book so many times I can't even count. My apartment is a testament to Martha Stewart, and when I buy a house, it will be even worse. I can't tell you how the dishwashing soap bottle just improves the look of the kitchen, not to mention using the concentrated stuff and diluting it with water saves money and the environment. Just so many things, I can't count. . .little things, that make it go a long way. See also Good Things For Organizing, which gave me four things to use the night I got it.