Make It Take It

If sewing with friends sparks your creative passion, jump-start your next retreat or sew-in with the projects in this well-curated collection. Organize your sewing tools and supplies with nine make-ahead projects; then choose from seven more projects to stitch for fun, alongside your friends. Twelve expert designers share their inspiring ideas for sewists on the go. Make everything from equipment totes, a needle case, crafter's apron, and sewing machine mat to striking quilts, place mats, a pillow, and table runner Enjoy retreat anecdotes and advice from the pattern designers Relax and rejuvenate as you create something fabulous for yourself or your creative friends

As an assistant coach and recruiter for a university basketball program, Steve Pytel is more concerned with winning and keeping his star players in line than maintaining his marriage and being an honest guy.

Whether you’re heading to a friendly brunch, family barbecue, church picnic or holiday office party, the perfect crowd-pleasing contribution is at your fingertips! No more worrying about what you can bring to the block party, bake sale or baby shower. Taste of Home Make It, Take It Cookbook is packed with more than 375 simply impressive bring-a-dish classics. Each recipe is guaranteed to travel well, come together easily and satisfy everyone at the party. In fact, these dishes are so incredible, you’ll want to serve them at home for your own gang to enjoy!

Whether you’re heading to a friendly brunch, family barbecue, church picnic or holiday office party, the perfect crowd-pleasing contribution is at your fingertips! No more worrying about what you can bring to the block party, bake sale or baby shower. Taste of Home Make It, Take It Cookbook is packed with more than 310 simply impressive bring-a-dish classics. Each recipe is guaranteed to travel well, come together easily and satisfy everyone at the party. In fact, these dishes are so incredible, you’ll want to serve them at home for your own gang to enjoy! Each recipe travels well, feeds at least 10 and comes together easily. No more doubling or tripling the ingredients, struggling to get your dish to the celebration or finding the perfect addition to holiday buffet. CHAPTERS Appetizers & Dips Breakfast for a Bunch Main Dishes Sides & Salads Big Batch Dishes Slow Cooker The Sweetest Treats No-Bake Favorites Party-Perfect Bites RECIPES Caramel Nut Breakfast Cake Creamy Hash Brown Casserole Roasted Vegetable Dip Sausage-Stuffed Jalapenos Ranch Beans Quick & Easy Swedish Meatballs Mac & Cheese for a Bunch Pizza Pasta Casserole Grilled Picnic Chicken Slow-Cooked Tater Tot Casserole Chocolate-Almond Crescents Nutty Cheesecake Squares Pumpkin Bars Cinnamon Roll Casserole Cookie Ice Cream Pie

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

I know that to see the truth in myself and the things to work on myself are the most important. The sooner we see the things, the better person we can become. This is to show how we can all come through the tough times. We battle with a smile. Even though we might not see it right away, we all have this inside of ourselves. I try to show with my personality and smiles to others, even on the tough days, to try and help people through their tough times, to have the self-awareness to constantly try and be the best version of myself possible. It's about who we become and what we can give back.

The essentials of communication for professionals, educators, students, and entrepreneurs, from organizing your thoughts to inspiring your audience. Do you give presentations at meetings? Do you ever have to explain a complicated subject to audiences unfamiliar with your field? Do you make pitches for ideas or products? Do you want to interest a lecture hall of restless students in subjects that you find fascinating? Then you need this book. Make It Clear explains how to communicate—how to speak and write to get your ideas across. Written by an MIT professor who taught his students these techniques for more than forty years, the book starts with the basics—finding your voice, organizing your ideas, making sure what you say is remembered, and receiving critiques (“do not ask for brutal honesty”)—and goes on to cover such specifics as preparing slides, writing and rewriting, and even choosing a type family. The book explains why you should start with an empowerment promise and conclude by noting you delivered on that promise. It describes how a well-crafted, explicitly identified slogan, symbol, salient idea, surprise, and story combine to make you and your work memorable. The book lays out the VSN-C (Vision, Steps, News–Contributions) framework as an organizing structure and then describes how to create organize your ideas with a “broken–glass” outline, how to write to be understood, how to inspire, how to defeat writer's block—and much more. Learning how to speak and write well will empower you and make you smarter. Effective communication can be life-changing—making use of just one principle in this book can get you the job, make the sale, convince your boss, inspire a student, or even start a revolution.

Too often, people drift through life with a feeling of frustration, longing to find some adventure or purpose in life, envious of those whose lives seem exciting. In WRITE IT DOWN, MAKE IT HAPPEN, Henriette Anne Klauser shows you how to write your own lifescript. Simply writing down your goals in life is the first step towards achieving them. The 'writing it down' part is not about time management; it is not a 'to-do today' list that will make you feel guilty if you don't get everything done. Rather, writing it down is about clearing your head, identifying what you want and setting your intent. You can 'make it happen' purely by believing in the possibility. In WRITE IT DOWN, MAKE IT HAPPEN, there are stories from ordinary people who witnessed miracles large and small unfold in their lives after they performed the basic act of putting their goals on paper.

"With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.