Crafty Collage
Kelly Zarb
A5
https://www.etsy.com/shop/kellyzarb
I bought this zine on Etsy a couple years ago not only because I’m a crafty artist-type person but because it’s a zine that helped crack open this stubborn mind of mine to show that zines could be even more than I thought they were at the time.
While this zine holds to the ‘traditional’ zine idea in many ways – A4 folded in half, copied, staples for binding – it also came with a little extra that I hadn’t seen before at the time: extra stuff! This zine came with a small bag filled with various bits and bobs to get you started on your way to making your first collage. While that might not seem like much to some people – and it’s a ‘little’ detail to me now – at the time, I thought it was fantastic. Now only were you getting tips on making various collage crafts, but the zine creator helped you to take the first step. Simple but pleasurable to receive.
The zine itself is easy to read while taking advantage of the white space of the pages. There are plenty of drawings, and an artist bunny sort of guides you through the crafts. The bunny and the style of the drawings did make me feel a little like handing this off to someone younger – but that’s not a bad thing! This zine could be an amazing way to get an artsy young person into zines.
Crafty Collage is a ‘cute’ zine, through and through. There’s no getting around that, so it’s not going to appeal to some people. But the less you appeal to some of the crowd, the more you appeal to the rest who are still looking. It all balances out.
It does look a bit like she’s taken to only art on her Etsy shop, but that doesn’t stop you from sending a message to see if she has more zines…
very nice!