Hand Made is an ode to a different era, one of making do and using what is at hand, an era of making a little go a long way. Melissa Norris approaches this ode, however, from a distinctly modern perspective, recognizing that full-time work, parenting expectations, and busy lives have accumulated for most of us since the Depression. This juxtaposition is what makes Hand Made so refreshing and approachable - the way Norris works Depression-era wisdom into modern life seems so do-able and so worth doing. Nuggets of Christian wisdom and musings tied to household activities are embedded in the start of each chapter. These thoughts are lovely for those who appreciate them, and easily skipped for those who don't. The depression-era tips for living, and the economical and simple recipes are to be savored. The tested, illustrated, step-by-step instructions for making things like soap, sauerkraut, and fudge make all the difference for the modern homemaker who may never have been taught such things growing up. This book is beautiful and has tremendous shelf appeal, and will also appeal to a wide range of readers - an excellent addition to a public library collection.

Handmade is an encouraging, heartwarming, and mostly practical guide to living a little more like our great grandparents. Norris emphasizes the values of "from scratch" living and creating in an accessible, easy to adapt way. Though Norris has shaped her whole life around this homesteading mentality, her ideas and suggestions are accessible and realistic in any stage of life.
As a relatively young mother of two boys under two, I've got very little "extra" time on my hands. All the same, we eat every meal at home in order to create a healthy diet for our sons and meet our shoestring budget. Norris makes "doing more with less" seem fun and easy. She also gives her reader the opportunity to take on only what they want; not condemning the decision to leave off things that are "too much". In fact, one of my favorite passages related to Martha in the Bible; Norris reminds us through Martha's story that the motivation behind our deeds is whatabtruly matters, and that the Lord can be relied upon for all our burdens. Similarly, Norris emphasizes that even she over plans and gets overwhelmed. She valuably reminds us that, while our culture encourages us to " hurry up" and "do more", Gosd intends for us to slow down in order to hear and follow him. As an overplanning, overtired mom, this was by far the most precious and pertinent moment of the book.
Of course, one can't overlook the phenomenal recipes included in quantity. Each one is simple and easy to follow, using (mostly) familiar everyday ingredients and thoroughly explaining anything that might be unfamiliar. We particularly loved the master bread recipes; being able to have fresh bread dough on hand at all times is invaluable to us card-aholics! The taco seasoning was great as well. We'll continue to try these!
There's really no end to the good things I have to say about this book. It was an enjoyable read all the way through; witty, genuine, and packed with valuable tips you'd rarely find outside of great-grandma's kitchen. Norris infuses all this with a rock-solid core of faith; producing moments for true reflection and heart-strengthening.

I plan to buy this book in hard copy as soon as possible so I can keep it front and center in my kitchen. I'll undoubtedly be gifting copies as well, especially after being provided with my copy through Net Galley for this review. Great work, Melissa Norris! Keep it coming & God bless.

I am not someone who is trying to live off the land or make everything from scratch but I still liked this book. It was full of tips and recipes and ideas. It talked about ways to make your home a refuge for your family and others. I found it very compelling.
One of my favorite tips was to stretch a meal by adding another side dish. Sometimes I’m not sure if a meal I’m making will be enough for the number of people I’m serving, but I don’t want to make a whole second pan. Adding another side dish is a great, easy option.
Each chapter has a different focus and everything is tied in to that theme. For instance, a chapter entitled “Simmer” talks about how God calls us to wait at times and the lessons that are learned in the waiting. This section included recipes that take a bit more time, like soups.
I loved the selection of recipes in this book and can’t wait to try some. I’ve read about many pioneer women making biscuits and now I know how to do that myself. There are helpful ideas like making a double batch so you’ll have some to freeze or substitutions if you don’t have buttermilk.
There is information on growing herbs indoors, prioritizing daily tasks, simplifying your life, decorating, gift making, etc. It doesn’t cover these topics extensively but it gives a person like me a place to start. The ideas and recipes don’t require a lot of fancy tools or ingredients. I marked many things that I want to try.
Thank you to Harvest House for providing me with a free e-copy of this book. I was not required to leave a positive review. All opinions are my own.

What I enjoyed most about this book is the author reflecting on 'simpler' times calling the reader to slow down and embrace the world of scratch living.

There's a nice blend of story and ideas in this title. My (personal) issue is that I can't make many of the recipes as is with my need to eat gluten-free for now. But, I can let my boys eat them all!

This book was disappointing. The cover is so beautifully illustrated, but when you get inside the book it is all words. In today's world, people craze illustrations, unless they are reading a novel. Cookbooks deserve pictures and this book disappointed me because it did not provide any. There is more narrative than I expected in this book too.

A beautifully put together book.
It's pretty much like this book was made for me. I love being at home. I love making healthy food from scratch for my family. Doing that is what makes me happiest in life so I was pretty much promised I would love this book.
I enjoyed all the stories scattered throughout and there are so many recipes I can't wait to try. First up per my 6 year old will be the Pumpkin Applesauce Cake.
I have the Sourdough sandwich bread (slow version) rising on my counter right now and we can't wait to see how it turns out! I have been building my sourdough starter for a few months now and had just told my 17 yr old son I really needed to find a good recipe for sandwich bread. Hopefully this will be it.
I will be ordering a print copy soon because I can see this being a good guide to keep on hand.

I received a digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Everything Handmade gives a immense pleasure and a feel of proud when someone appreciates us. This book has wonderful recipes to make on our own.......

Making your family more self-sufficient is a lofty goal. If you look you'll find books, magazines, and blogs, all trumpeting making everything by hand, living off the grid, or creating your own homestead. To some extent Hand Made isn't that much different from the others. In it you'll find tons of recipes, crafts, and ideas for creating your homestead.

In other, very important ways, it's different. Partly it's because this way of life is not unusual for her. She and her family have lived on the same rural street for generations. For them, what is now trendy homesteading is just the way they live. Because Norris hasn't lived far from this, her voice has authority many books lack.

More importantly though, this book takes an explicitly Christian and Bible-centered approach to the subjects at hand. For Christians, especially young families, who want to embrace a simpler, less hurried life this helps to put that trendiness into a context that lifts it from faddishness to authenticity.

It still feels though, as if doing all of this is just too much. Can your grind your own wheat for flowers, simplify all your stuff, care for your family, and still work outside the home? Norris uses her own life and her stories about it to say yes.

I'm still a bit skeptical, it does seem like a huge step from breakfast at the Golden Arches to creating from scratch a sourdough starter. But the huge number of ideas in this book will encourage anyone to find some things to do to simplify and improve your life.

I enjoyed this book very much. It has a lot of good tips, some of which were new to me, and it also has recipes that I will be trying soon. At the top are the Pumpkin Applesauce Cake, Chocolate Custard Bread Pudding, Pumpkin Sugar Cookies and the White Sauce Chicken Pizza, just to name a few. There are many others I will be trying. I did make the Chocolate Chip cookies and they were delicious. It makes a lot of dough so I ended up freezing half of it as she suggests in the book. That's not something I think of doing when I make cookies but will definitely do that more in the future. Now I'll have cookie dough ready to make more cookies once my husband finishes this first batch. (Okay, I'll probably eat my share, too!)

There were some good tips on herbs as well that I wasn't aware of like growing basil without any dirt. I do grow my own basil in a pot outside but was not aware you could grow it without dirt. Very good to know as I love basil and use it often.

There are some good tips and suggestions for kitchen organization, something I actually started doing before reading this book. There are also recipes for making soap and candles, not something I've ever done but might consider doing. Great idea for gift giving.

I enjoy cooking and baking quite a bit (although, I do have those days when I ask: "I have to cook again?" I do make a lot of things from scratch now. Every so often I'll buy certain pre-made things for those lazy days but for the most part I find that home made is definitely better.

I highly recommend this book for those that enjoy making things from scratch or want to learn to do it more often. The recipes do not look complicated to me, and I think even a novice cook would be successful at making them. Melissa Norris includes personal stories and some scripture in some parts of the book that I enjoyed reading as well. Since I received a digital review copy of this book, I ended up purchasing a paper copy because I love collecting hardcover cookbooks and this is one I'd like to add to my collection, even though it's not strictly a "cookbook" and that is something I really like about this book. I might have to check out Melissa Norris' other book, The Made From Scratch Life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harvest House Publishers for the advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I liked some of the organizing tips. The old fashioned recipes were a nice bit of nostalgia. I did like the herb gardening and usage section. Overall, I don't know that a lot of the book content would truly translate into application for my life style.

A handy guide for women who like the 'do-it-yourself' approach to life!

I've always been the kind of person who wished I could have lived in the "good old days" when life was more simple. Some of the earliest books I remember reading were the Little House on the Prairie series and similar stories of kids living on farms. I have always dreamed of living on a farm, milking cows, gathering eggs from my chickens, making my own bread from scratch, and all those other farmy things. Then I married Billy, who's really a farm boy at heart. While he wasn't raised on a farm, he was raised in farm country, and spent a lot of time around farms and animals, and did a lot of work there. Not very many people know, but when he first got laid off from the coal mines, we looked at a farm that we were very interested in buying, but it just didn't work out.



I was excited to see this book, Hand Made, by Melissa K. Norris. Melissa is a modern-day homesteader. This book claims to be "the modern woman's guide to made-from-scratch living," and that's exactly what it is! This book is full of instructions for everything from making your own buttermilk and mayonnaise, to fermenting vegetables and making your own soap. There are also recipes for truly made-from-scratch cookies, bread, cakes and pies. You'll find a chapter about growing and drying herbs, and which ones are good for medicine.

I found a ton of different things I want to try to 'hand-make' myself. Literally, if I owned this as a physical book, it would be hard to close it because of all of my bookmarks and turned-down page corners. Here are just a few of the things I marked to try:
•Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits (with homemade buttermilk, if you prefer!)
•Crackers
•Flaky Pie Crust
•Buttermilk Pie
•Pumpkin Applesauce Cake
•Peach Pudding Cake
•Pizza Dough
•Lotion
•Birthday Cake and Frosting
•Pumpkin Sugar Cookies (with fresh pumpkin, of course!)
•Beeswax Candles
•Soap
•Cinnamon Salt Dough Ornaments
•Christmas Potpourri
•Old-Fashioned Christmas Fudge

Yes, that's just a few of the things I'd like to try! However, there are few aspects of homesteading that I don't think I'd enjoy at all. I love to can food and make jam, especially with apples, strawberries and peaches. I do occasionally make pickles, too, but I don't think I would care for fermenting food. I also really like to make bread, but I don't know if I would like to go through all the effort to make a starter, and spend time working on it and adding to it every day for my own sourdough. I have grown some of my own herbs in the past, and I really liked the instructions for doing that, even in a small space. But, I'm not sure I'd want to try to use them for medicinal purposes.

This book is also filled with little stories from Melissa's life, and some of the reasons that she chooses to homestead, and raise most of her own food, and make her own preservative-free products. I like that she has a Biblical theme woven throughout, as she teaches us about the way our grandmothers used to live. There are also a lot of tidbits of wisdom from the Depression Era about using what we have, and not being wasteful.

We look back at the lives that our grandparents, and great-grandparents lived, and think how much simpler it was. Of course, it was more simple, but not easier! Actually, their lives were much more complicated. They did a lot of work to get things that we just take for granted now. I'm thankful that Melissa Norris opened my eyes to just how easy I have it in a lot of ways. Living the homesteader life definitely isn't easy, but it is simpler, and a healthier way to live, it you're willing to put in the effort.

After reading Hand Made, I've decided the homesteader life probably isn't for me. I do hope there is a little farm in my family's future. Just a little bit of land with some chickens, maybe goats and a few cows and a garden. Maybe even some fresh herbs and our own handmade soap. But I think I'll keep buying my sour cream, buttermilk and sourdough bread for now, and I'll keep using regular medicine. But in the future, who knows? It's good to know that I have this book, and I'll definitely be keeping it for a reference!

Happy reading...and homesteading!



I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own, and a favorable review was not required. This post contains affiliate links.

I love the good old fashioned wisdom and folklore that Melissa K. Norris delivers in Hand Made. Her recipes are good, filling, and simple. Great recipes that don't require a lot of ingredients and that anyone could make to help keep their family satisfied.

Besides the great recipes Hand Made also has some great ideas to help you get back to a simpler, stress free way of life like; how to handle cooking for unexpected company with enough food and grace, make inexpensive crafts for Christmas, and how to enjoy the things you have.

I've already tried an idea out of this book and we loved it. Great read!

I've mostly skimmed through this so far. Lots of recipes I'd like to try. I wouldn't say the book itself is anything special, there's nothing there you couldn't really find online or in other books but nice to have so many different ones in just one book. A lot of the recipes are very time consuming although the author does generally offer a quicker, more modern alternative which is the one I'd use for any of the recipes I try.

There are lots of little stories about the authors childhood and family which are a nice touch. For me though there's way too much emphasis on God. I'm not religious and personally I find it irritating having it rammed down my throat in books. I don't need preaching to through a recipe book.

After reading this book about baking, cooking, growing herbs, creating hand-made soaps or candles, and decorating and organizing your home, I want to try it all! I want to cook every recipe, and start an herb garden, and make little gifts for all my friends! I want to organize my kitchen, and plan for holiday decorating, and fill my house with the yummy smells of baking.

The best thing about this book is the personal childhood stories of the author, detailing her mother's cooking, her father's warm spirit, and her grandmother's wisdom. With each little anecdote, the author invites us to share in her family's home heritage, and then she shows us how to create that cordial atmosphere in our own homes and hearts.

The only drawback is that some of the recipes and instructions are a little too "from scratch" making them time-consuming or difficult. Nobody cooks with lard anymore. I don't want to make my own buttermilk or sauerkraut. I just don't have 7 weeks to create yeast starter, when I could buy an active yeast packet at the store and be done with it. I'm all for being "natural", but.... ain't nobody got time for that!
Thankfully, the author usually adds a quicker recipe, a store-bought substitute, or a more tech-friendly option for those of us who don't live in the country with our own acre-wide garden and a butterchurn on the back porch.

The thing that truly made me fall in love with this book is the way the author ties in Scripture and Christian lessons with her stories and anecdotes about her childhood and family. She reminds us to let our light shine, give up on being perfect all the time, follow our truth, and trust in God through each situation. These are little lessons we hear all the time, but this author weaves them into the book in such a unique way, with her own perspective and delightful humor, and they feel new and pertinent again.

A charming and wholesome book with roots in the frugality of the Great Depression era!

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts and are not influenced by anyone.

The publisher provided me with the opportunity to read this in exchange for providing feedback. (via NetGalley)

Well written. The recipes were organized well and easy to follow. I didn't catch that this would have religious undertones, which aren't really for me. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this.

Wow, this book is so full of ideas for simplifying your lifestyle that you should just go out and buy it...I certainly will! Offering much more than just recipes, this is a must if you have any interest in making healthy and simpler lifestyle choices.

'Hand Made' is a great book for all who are tired of participating in a rat race and would like to slow down a bit. The book is full of recipies that will remind you of your grandma's cuisine. Zero waste recipies (not only for food) will make every environmentalist happy. Going back to the roots a reader reconnects with handicraft and heritage of previous generations. I highly recommend!

Hand-Made by Melissa K. Norris features a mix of old-fashioned and modern recipes, home arts and housekeeping recipes or techniques. The author intertwines her recipes or techniques with faith-based comments.

What I liked most about her book was her written commentary telling about her daily life and how she baked, cooked, and cared for her family while trying to maintain a back-to-the basics lifestyle.

I also liked how she included safety information when it came to using herbs for medicinal purposes.

Her book contains the following chapters:

Come On In
Bake
Simmer
Culture
Thrive
Simplify
Homespun Holidays
Recipe Index

Some of the recipes you’ll find include:

Buttermilk (how to make your own from scratch)
Son of a Gun Stew
Old-Fashioned Christmas Fudge (and how to fix grainy fudge)
Pumpkin Puree (you can use the puree to bake Pumpkin Sugar Cookies)

Some of the crafts you’ll find include:

Melt-and-Pour Soap
Cinnamon Salt Dough Ornaments
Beeswax Candles

She also writes about growing and using herbs. In this chapter she gives planting and growing times; how to dry the herbs; and how to use herbs in cooking and medicine. She includes safety information when needed for each herb. For example she writes “Do not take by mouth or Arnica internally, as this can cause serious side effects.” I appreciate her taking the time to warn readers about her usage. She also includes recipes to make your own Taco Seasoning Mix or Ranch Dressing Mix.

Later in the chapter she gives information on how to make your own herb tinctures and how to use them.

I liked her vignettes about her life and how she used Christian teachings to emphasize how you can apply those principles in daily living.

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from Net Galley.

The book is filled with many, many recipes as well as a few non-edible recipes that could make for great gifts; however, nothing within the volume really came across as different or unique to me. Most of these recipes are ones I could find anywhere, with perhaps just the slightest tweak, and there were not many tips or tricks that came across as useful to someone who has read plenty of crafting or recipe books. While some of the content could still be of interest to others, it was not to me.