There was no shortage of craft books on the market this year. From knitting to t-shirt reconstructing more and more crafters are sharing their ideas with the world.

One of our personal favorites this year was Leah Kramer's 'The Craftsters Guide to Nifty, Thrifty and Kitschy Crafts'. Kramer, a craft maven by every definition of the word, is responsible for starting the fabulous craftster.org, an online community for crafters of all stripes. Kramer is also one of the organizers behind Bazaar Bizarre, and if that weren't enough she is also part owner of Magpie, a crafty boutique in Sommerville, Massachusetts. A self proclaimed craft junkie, this book was inspired by Kramer's collection of craft books from the 1950's and 60's. In fact, about seventy percent of the projects that appear in the book are taken from those retro publications.

We'll admit at first we thought some of the projects seemed a little silly, Terry Loincloths anyone? But part of what makes this book so great is that these outlandish projects are the ones from the 50's & 60's. And there's something sort of charming about the crocheted doll face fridge magnets and beaded fruit. The actual images and text are reproduced so you can read pack-o-fun's (a manufacturer of many of these vintage craft booklets) original directions and delight in the drawings that accompany them. As Kramer states in the introduction, there's something sweetly nostalgic about craft projects from this era, not that we would have wanted to live in the 50's either, but it would have been fun to make a gold macaroni frame with your grandma back then.

SFist Christina Loff, contributing

Nifty, Thrifty, and Kitschy Crafts is also chock full of really useful and original ideas. The felt cut out animals were one of the first projects we tried. They are easy, and instantly turn a plain sweater into something cute and unusual. For this project the shapes are provided so you can trace the animals or take the idea and run with it, like we did, cutting little Bambi's out of felt and sewing them wherever we could.

The book provides a list of craft materials that are useful to have around the house and definitions for all of them, which makes it a great gift for a new crafter. Broken up into Accessories, Home, Clothing, Novelties, and Holiday, the book is well organized and fun to flip through on days when you need a bit of inspiration to get your crafty wheels turning. There are also a lot of great craft ideas to do with kids in this one, we can't wait to spend some time with our nephew making foil animals. And in case anyone wants to buy us an early Christmas present, we can't wait to get our hands on Craftivity, the new book written by the folks behind SuperNaturale.