Tucked away in a plain five-story building in Manhattan is a magical place--The Muppet Workshop, where inspired craftspeople combine a diverse array of skills to bring the Muppet world to life. Now The Workshop, along with Stephanie St. Pierre--who grew up making crafts with her friends the Hensons--presents The Muppets Big Book of Crafts, a collection of 100 great projects plus trade secrets. Filled with full-color photographs and how-to line illustrations, The Muppets Big Book of Crafts is divided into chapters by technique and teaches the basics of drawing, sculpting, sewing, painting, dyeing, woodworking, quilting, puppetry, beading, and more. The results are amazing. A creepy-crawly spider piata filled with baby candy spiders. Elaborate tin can lanterns. A mosaic made of eggshells. Not to mention Groovy Glasses, Suncatcher Bugs, and Awesome Umbrae Scarf, a Wiggly Worm, and Marvelous Maracas. Throughout, tips, advice, and the running commentary of Muppet characters keep the book lively and entertaining.

Accordion Photo Album This photo album is a great way to show off your latest and greatest pictures. Fill it with photos of your best friends or your family, or make a photo album full of pictures of you to give to a parent or grandparent. You could also use it as a professional portfolio by gluing in photographs of your other creations (all of us at the Workshop keep a portfolio of our work for reference). With this project, you'll learn bookbinding--the simple accordion-fold method. As you will see, the accordion fold lets you either flip through the book or spread it open and display it. 1. Decide how many album pages you'll need and how big they should be. Plan to leave good-size margins of black cardboard around the edges of each photo (at least 1 or 2 inches). 2. Cut the desired number of thin cardboard pieces ("pages") to your page size. Place two pages side by side, leaving about 1/8 inch between pages, and tape the pages together with black masking tape, as shown. Continue laying pages and taping together until your album is as long as you want it to be. 3. Fold the pages back and forth at the taped joints to form an accordion shape. 4. Unfold the pages and place your photos in place on the pages. Put double-sided tape on the back and stick them in place. 5. Add some special touches: --Use ribbons or other trims to make frames around your photos. --Use a gold pen to write stories, captions, and messages. --Add stickers to the page for captions or decoration. --Cut out pictures from magazines and paste them around the margins. --Draw a swirly pattern or write your name with white glue on the cover and sprinkle glitter on top. Let dry and brush off the extra glitter. Excerpted from The Muppets Big Book of Crafts. Copyright (c) 1999 by The Jim Henson Company, Inc. Reprinted with permission by Workman Publishing.