Nature Painting in Watercolor Giveaway

Nature Painting in Watercolor by Kristine A. Lombardi focuses on watercolour painting inspired by the outdoors, specifically, the plants, flowers, birds and animals. This book is a good place for beginning and aspiring artists to learn how to create their favourite ferns, leaves, trees, florals, animals, using the popular watercolour medium.

Summer Reads

I have come across people who have said they don’t recognize racism, they don’t see the difference, or even say that it is just an excuse people use to get what they want, while secretly being thankful for their inherited privileges such as the colour of their skin while others can’t change theirs. How many people can genuinely say that they have not judged someone consciously or unconsciously based on a person’s looks?

Novels for teenagers and adults

We can't believe how quickly August is coming to an end. This summer, we got a chance to read a lot more novels. Here are a few of the titles we recommend...
10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Young Adult/ Adult
Destination Wedding - Adults
The Black Kids - Young Adult
The Last Dragon Rider An Adventure in Presadia - Children

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with this Giveaway

The recent conversations surrounding our planet and the importance of all of us doing our part of consuming less and being careful with our choices have become even more important. With the current situation in the world, we can see how closely we are all connected - what happens in one part of the world can impact us all! We have had a lot of time to think about our impact on the environment and how we can reduce it during the recent months. With the 50th anniversary of Earth Day coming on April 22, 2020 we have been reading and learning from two DK Canada books surrounding the topics of our planet - DKfindout! Climate Change and How We're F***ing Up Our Planet. 

Win DK findout! books of your choice

We enjoy books that are not only fun to read, but also educational. DK findout! books are an excellent way for children to get interested in topics that will be useful for their common knowledge. We like that DK is introducing topics that children will come across in their curriculum and beyond. The vibrant pictures, simple explanations, and facts make it easy to remember the main points of each topic. 

Quilling Plumeria Blossoms Inspired by Quilled Flowers: A Garden of 35 Paper Projects

Quilled Flowers: A Garden of 35 paper projects by Alli Bartkowski is an inspiring, colourful book that will increase the passion for how fun and enjoyable quilling is and can be. This colourful book not only made me want to try all the projects in it, but also brought out how much I enjoy taking pictures and closely looking at the beautiful, unique flowers God has created. 

Benefit from DK Book Sales and Win Smithsonian Institution's Natural History Book

This month DK is having two fun boutiques Best for Baby and Earthly Pleasures in honour of Earth Day 2014, which will happen on April 22nd this year. The Baby Boutique has a selection of titles that will answer many questions parents have in topics such as pregnancy and birth, newborns to toddlers, baby health, nutrition, and more. The books are 30% off for a limited time and perfect to give as gifts for parents since we all know as exciting as it is having a baby, it can be overwhelming and we all need some advice on unfamiliar topics. 

Inspiring Crafting Books

Image of the cozies from Sewing for All Seasons book

Happy National Craft Month everyone :) I enjoy doing a variety of different crafts because it is fun and a good way to add personalized decor in our home or give as gifts. I also like learning new ones, and have been curious to do quilting and needle felting. I have done some projects that closely fall into quilting, but never did the full process of placing the batting etc. I checked out some inspiring needle crafting books 1 2 3 Quilt and Sewing for All Seasons, which has wonderful projects to get us started. I also got the Woolbuddies book to learn and try the hobby of needle felting. 

Entertaining Sticker Books

DK books are hosting a special Buy 2 Get 1 Free Sticker Book boutique for the next few weeks inspired by the cabin fever that is taking place in family households across Canada this freezing cold winter. 

My Inspiration To Origami

The big book of things to make has a cool variety of things we can make, do and learn about. Although, I would love to be good at origami, I am not :). My uncle masters the art of origami and makes admirable things with origami paper. 

Go Behind the Scenes with these Movie Maniacs DK Books

Every Disney fan, young or old will enjoy the Pixar: Character Encyclopedia. We are big fans of Disney Pixar movies so we enjoyed looking through this book and learning about more than 200 characters. We like that the characters are separated by the movies such as Toy Story 1, 2, 3, a bug’s life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall. E, Up and Brave. 

Stay Fit Cycling

My husband believes the most fun way to stay fit for him is cycling. He just wishes there is more good weather to do this often. We introduced our children to cycle with a tricycle first and now they are in the process of learning to ride a bike. This has become one of our favourite summer activities.

Riding a bike not only benefits our body, but also the environment as it is emission free. We should be walking/riding the bike to help our environment, whenever we can. Lets celebrate the World Environment Day on June 5th by doing something that will help the environment.

Digital books that children will enjoy learning from

On Beyond Bugs is an educational digital book about insects from The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library series. I recommend this fun, fact-filled app that will benefit our children.

Fun to Read Digital Books for Children

Dr. Seuss's Short Story Collection has eight classic titles all in one digital book app. Each of these stories entertain in classic Seuss style and provides timeless moral lessons for readers young and old. 

Step-by-Step Home Design and Decorating Ideas

This book Step-by-Step home design and decorating give us lots of ideas to get our home functioning in the style we like. We can renovate our kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom, hallway, home office, laundry room and outside space within our budget by using the information from this book.

The beautiful pictures and instructions will encourage us to take on a project and complete it. My husband and I enjoy doing our own DIY projects as it keeps the cost low and once the projects are completed it gives us a sense of achievement. We recently renovated our outdoor space, backsplash in the kitchen and redecorated our entertainment area. We are always looking for ways to upgrade and add character to our home by doing small renovations, so we will be using this book as a guide before starting projects.

Usually when we do projects we come across problems we don’t know how to fix, which causes frustration so having a book to refer to will be helpful. This book gives us lots of details to help us when we are planning our projects. 

The book has information about creating focal points with picture frames and placing them in the correct way so it would suit our furniture and room. We got this Big Red painting from Lowes that adds character to our living room.

I think this book is a must for everyone interested in doing DIY projects as it gives detailed explanations.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2011 - 2013. Please Ask First

Knitted Rose

I made this knitted rose project by following the instructions on the Stitch-by-Stitch book written by Jane Bull. Although this book is recommended for children between the age of 5 and 8, even adults will enjoy learning from it. The book shows the projects beautifully with detailed zoomed pictures, so we can easily follow it. There are lots of cute projects in this book that are made with felt, wool and cloth.  

The Birds of North America that visited our garden

House Sparrow

Birds of North America is a complete photographic guide to every Bird species we will see in North America written by experts from Canada and US. We really enjoyed learning about birds from this jargon-free book.  This guide has close up, colourful photography that brings over 650 birds species to life. It is a wonderful reference book to people of all ages with all levels of experience. We liked learning about the social behaviours and nesting habits of the birds we encounter during different seasons. Learning and recognizing the different species of birds becomes easier with a colourful book like this.

Mystery of Life: Our survival depends on flowers

Before watching the Disneynature Wings of Life I thought the movie was about butterflies.  However, while watching the movie I realized it is called “Wings of life” because it outlines the importance of pollinators such as beetles, insects, bees, hummingbirds and bats that carry the pollen grains to other plants, so the plants can reproduce. I recommend this heartwarming movie for the whole family, as it points out the importance of flowers. This DVD and Blu-ray combo will be available on April 16th.

I also read the book Rainforest by Thomas Marent, which is filled with beautiful close-up photographs of the rare beauties found in the exciting, but dangerous tropical rainforests.  The pictures are amazing, which shows us the uniqueness and the beautiful details found in nature if we just stop to look at it.  

We are planning to take lots of Gardening Shortcuts this Summer

It is that time of the year when we start thinking of gardening projects and designing outdoors.  I totally look forward to spring, as I like to plan and think of all the possible projects we can do in the garden even before the ground thaws.  

Since we are planning on a trip this summer :) the time I have to garden this year is limited.  I want to make sure that we maximize the fun of gardening by spending as little time maintaining it.  This book Gardening Shortcuts has lots of ideas that will make this possible, and I am sure every gardener will appreciate the tips found in this book.  

The suggested tips and ideas in this book lets us get the maximum benefit of enjoying our garden with less time maintaining it.

Last year, we gave a quick lift to a dull garden space by creating a flowerbed and adding rocks.  Seeing this idea in the book made me feel good that I had come up with this project last year.

To make this flower bed we mounted a lot of soil because we wanted some height.  Then we planted a Japanese maple tree that we bought from Sheridan.  We chose the blood good variety of Japanese maple tree that doesn't grow too tall, and has bright red leaves.  

Around the tree, we placed Pefferlaw deco stones and gravel river rocks that can be purchased in all these locations.  I like how rocks give a serene, natural atmosphere to the garden while helping control weeds in an eco-friendly way.  Usually adding rocks and hard elements to the garden brings the lush colours of plants and flowers to become more focused and attractive. 

We also put a solar spotlight in this area that makes the plants glow at night.  To give the area more colour we planted different coloured pansies and marigold.  To make sure the area does not get a crowded and cluttered we always prune and remove the plants that spread.

This book gives a lot of ideas on how we can create privacy and sheltered spaces in the garden by adding fences and patio.  It also has lovely decorative projects that we can do without incurring a big cost.

This book also shows us neat ideas on how we can grow fruits and vegetables in a decorative manner.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2011 - 2013. Please Ask First

It Is Officially Spring, Time To Spot Bugs and Butterflies

Today is the official first day of spring, but the weather outside is nothing like spring.  Everyone in my family is missing the warm weather, the beautiful sunshine, flowers, birds and even the bugs.  

As an adult I am not a big fan of bugs, however when I was little it was a different story as my brothers and I use to collect flies and look for other types of bugs in our garden... thinking back I feel bad about this activity of ours as it wasn't cool for the bugs.  

My children are big fans of insects as well, and they are both in the age of exploring about them.  When they saw this book Spot the Bug by Tom Jackson they became very excited.