Creative Art Books for Beginners and Giveaway

Finding time to explore and use our creative outlets can be challenging. Books that inspire us to get creative in very less time are useful during these times. We like the 15-Minute Painting: Effortless Watercolour and 15-Minute Drawing: Getting Started series that help us complete projects in one sitting and feel accomplished. These books are easy to follow as the instructions are written in a simple approachable way, and it has step-by-step projects that are easy and fun to follow and complete in 15 minutes. Since both books, give a quick overview of the basics tools and materials, it would be useful for beginners.

Inspiring and Creative Books and Giveaway

Reading books that inspire us to reflect and be thankful, as well as books that help us to get back into creative hobbies we enjoy is important for us. These books reminds us to prioritize when things become routined and we start feeling bored. These are couple of inspiring art books - Mixed Media Color Studio and Urban Sketching Handbook: Color First, Ink Later. We also read Attitudes of Gratitude and A Little Book of Thank Yous that were good reminders to refocus, show gratitude, and be thankful.

Holiday Gift Ideas and Giveaways

With the holiday season around the corner, here is a list of gift ideas to consider. This post will be updated all month long with deals, discounts, and giveaways. All giveaways are only open to people living in Canada.

For every home ~ 

• Cuisipro  Soft-Touch Cookware Set and Dish rack
• Hamilton Beach Juicer, Grinder, Mixer
• Melitta coffee products
• Schlage Encode Smart Door Lock

For your well-being ~ 

• Good Burdens book (giveaway enter below)
• Nature Painting in watercolor (giveaway)
• Ekster wallets

For children ~ 

• Molly the Mastodon book
• Bug Lab experience at Ontario Science Centre
• Baby Born Surprise Animal Babies (giveaway below)
• Akedo and Bluey Heeler toys (giveaway below)
• Rummikub

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.

Gardening in Small Spaces and Giveaway

Gardening is one of our favourite hobbies. In the past years, we have passionately done a variety of DIY projects and improved our gardening to become a backyard oasis. We have built a variety of different gardening structures, put in a pond with aquatic plants, made spaces for birds, planted fruit trees, invested in different types of perennials over the years, and more. When it comes to growing vegetables, we usually buy transplants from garden centres and put in a few seeds directly in the garden.

Double Ditto giveaway

Double Ditto has become our favourite new game! It is the perfect party game where everyone can play! This game can be played with more than four players over 10 years. It is fun to predict what our family and friends will say before they actually say it. It’s not that they lack originality, it’s just an unspoken super power that exists once a relationship evolves to a certain point. This is an easy game to learn and play, which will be fun for the whole family.

Rummikub for Game Nights and Giveaway

There are a few go-to games in our family we enjoy playing during game nights and get-togethers, and Rummikub is one of them. Rummikub reinforces STEM skills like sequencing, pattern recognition and planning. 

A World of Animals Book Giveaway

A World of Animals is a unique how-to-draw book that takes young readers on a journey around the globe. This book teaches how to draw more than 175 animals including critters from seven continents. There is a double-sided poster with a world map showing which part of the world the animals live in and the other side of the poster groups the animals by continents. There are a couple of sticker pages which would make young readers feel excited. 

Books that unravel the mysteries of the universe, oceans, and museums

Unravelling the mysteries of the universe has been a human fascination since the beginning of time. From recording observations of stars, planets, and celestial sights to space travel, and even ideas of living in Mars has crossed the human mind. This book is a beautiful way for us to learn about the things we've wondered by understanding the science behind the mysteries. 

Nature inspired Plaster of Paris platter and giveaway

Long summer days are perfect for outdoor crafts. We did a fun project inspired by nature using Plaster of Paris from Craft Project Ideas. Since mediums like Plaster of Paris require time to dry, we find this process is a little faster when we dry it outdoors in the summer heat. 

Learning the history of inventions and giveaway

Summer learning continues with these awesome titles from DK publishers; Smithsonian History!, 1000 Inventions and Discoveries, and Inventors. It is fun to read educational books accompanied with illustrations, as it makes the content interesting and inspiring.

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. 

Eco-friendly dish cleansing paste from KLIIN and Giveaway

Thank you KLIIN for sponsoring this post, and for being part of our journey to become more eco-friendly!

In our home, we try our best to be eco-conscious about everything we do, from the materials we use to how much we consume and recycle. We recently got the opportunity to use KLIIN's new eco-friendly dish cleansing paste. We have been using this paste when hand-washing our dishes and to clean different surfaces around our home. We are thrilled with the results of how clean it made our surfaces and dishes look, and it feels good to know we can reduce our consumption of water as well.

Fun Games and Entertainment

We are always excited to try new games and do different hands on activities in our family. We love game nights, and recently have been playing Azul and Ticket to Ride London. We also spent time building with Flexo. A new calendar year comes with new resolutions to become more creative, so we have been practicing watercolour painting with Watercolour the Easy Way book and took the time to clean up, get organized, and even spiced up our phones by replacing our Pop Sockets with creative ones! We have also been reading the Four Seasons of Entertaining book that is filled with colourful photography, recipes, and ideas separated by each season. 

Go Back in Time with these DK Canada Books

We have been learning a lot of facts about influential people from the past that still impact our lives from a variety of DK books: The 100 women who made history, Explorers, and books from the DK Life Stories series. These books deliver the facts in a fun manner using colourful images to keep the readers engaged.

Getting Ready for a New School Year

Having books to refer to for school projects, the curriculum, and hard to grasp ideas will help ease some difficulties we may face in the school year. We have been checking out couple of books from DK Smithsonian, a year by year guide about History and Science, as well as three books from the Help Your Kids series; Geography, Music, and Computer Coding. 

Lemongrass House Handmade Spa Products that everyone will enjoy

Ever since we tried a few Lemongrass House products, we have been loving it because of their unique natural fragrances. Recently, we tried a few other products and love these as well. These handmade fresh products from Thailand do not use any type of artificial colour or preservatives, chemicals or parabens which makes it perfect for every skin type.  

Beyblade Burst Evolution and Giveaway

Disclosure: This post is in partnership with Hasbro Canada, products received for the purpose of reviewing. Please note that all opinions and thoughts expressed are my own. All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2010 - 2018. Please Ask First 

Our children first started playing Beyblades about six years ago. Beyblades are a fun toy for anyone (recommended age is over eight). We enjoy watching the tops of the Beyblades competing with each other as we zip the launcher, and predict whose Beyblade will spin the longest. During the past few weeks, we have been having fun with the new Beyblade Burst Evolution toys from Hasbro. 

Win a copy of Mamma Mia: here We Go Again

Mamma Mia: here We Go Again is available on digital 10/9 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on 10/23! Mamma Mia! The Movie is the musical celebration of mothers and daughters and fathers, true loves lost and new ones found, and the romantic possibilities of what can happen on a Greek island when love is in the air and music and dancing abound. Those who enjoy musical movies will enjoy this movie. 

Win your own Welcome-a-Cure Mat

Over the years, we have partnered with Carpet One Floor and Home to check out their new Welcome-a-Cure Mat designs. This exclusive collection of 2x3' Made-in-USA welcome mats are sold for $29.99 US, 25% of the proceeds from each mat goes towards breast cancer research.