Book Review: Star Wars Mania

I've already shared with you some of the cool projects I've made from my Fun Family Crafts boss Amanda Formaro's latest books, Paper Fun Mania and Button Mania. Both books are terrific and I highly recommend them. I've had great fun with all the projects I've done so far.

There was a third book that came with the other two in the box from the publisher....

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Sigh. I am not a Star Wars fan. Between doing a dozen Star Wars crafts and throwing Trevor a Star Wars birthday party last summer, I thought I was off the hook for Star Wars crafts for a long, long time. Nope!

Trevor was THRILLED to see Star Wars Mania. He happily grabbed it from me and ran off to get his post-it notes. He returned with almost every page marked in the book. Suddenly, I had a lightbulb moment. It's a kid's craft book, Trevor loves crafts and Star Wars, I'm struggling to occupy Trevor so I can work... I should put Trevor in charge of doing the book review!

I helped him gather materials for his first project, Lightsaber Bookmarks. 

The directions say to paint the craft sticks one side at a time, first with a base coat of white, then with a coat or two of glitter paint, then the black handle, and finally the silver accents. Trevor asked if I thought the Crayola Glitter Markers would work instead of having to wait for all those coats of paint to dry. I encouraged him to give it a try. It worked like a charm. The ink went on in one solid coat with no drying time necessary. Within 5 minutes, Trevor had four lightsabers that he loves.

His next project was a Jawa Rock. I'm not sure what a Jawa is, but Trevor assured me that this was a very cool craft idea. Conveniently, we had a rock already painted brown amongst our craft supplies (leftover from the Bear Pet Rocks the Cub Scouts made last year). Encouraged by how well the glitter markers worked on the lightsabers, Trevor decided to try using a Sharpie for both the face and the bandolier. He loved Amanda's tip about using the back of a paintbrush to make the yellow eyes. I use the back of a paintbrush for small things like that all the time, but apparently I've never shown Trevor that trick. This book, like her others, is full of great hints and tips like that. 

I managed to get about 20 minutes of work time in before Trevor needed my help on his 3rd project from Star Wars Mania, a Duct Tape Lightsaber. He has difficulty unrolling duct tape and tearing it off without it getting all twisted and stuck together. With my help, he finished in about 10 minutes. He couldn't wait to take it out back for a photo shoot. 

After we came back inside, I asked Trevor to type up a review and email it to me. Here's what I received:

"Star Wars Mania is a very good Star Wars craft book. It has clear writing and It's easy to understand, so you should try it! It has lots of things like duct tape lightsabers, Jawa rocks, and even model TIE fighters! When you buy it, you get over 40 Star Wars craft ideas!"

So there you have it. The deRosiers officially recommend Star Wars Mania! It is available for pre-order on Amazon and will be in stores in August. I'm sure I'll be sharing more Star Wars crafts inspired by Amanda's book in the near future.