Talking About Body Changes and Being There For Our Daughters

Puberty is a time period that is full of emotions for both girls and boys. This is the time when the body changes drastically and coping with it is different for everyone, but being aware about the changes and learning to cope with it is important. Having healthy conversations with our children and keeping resources that we agree with, are important so our children don't feel lost or embarrassed. This is also the time when a child's self-esteem can get hurt, as a parent we need to have the proper resources and be there for them.

A Compendium of Collective Nouns

I checked out this book A Compendium of Collective Nouns out of curiosity, as I find it is intriguing how collective nouns have come to be and are associated with things for example when we refer to accountants it is said, "a balance of accountants." It is fascinating to learn and use these during everyday conversations like saying, "an embarrassment of pandas" or saying "a parade of elephants". I enjoyed learning from and reading this book, which also gives graphic interpretations.

Quilled Birthday Card Cupcake with a Candle: Project from Pretty Quilled Cards book

Quilling, also known as paper filigree is an addictive fun craft that I started a few years ago, and have enjoyed making cards, frames, used it in decorating notebooks, and more. Most of the time, when I do quilling I quill the paper into circle shapes and then make different shapes using my fingers.

Feel The Tropics As You Enjoy Baking and Eating This Aloha Bread

April showers are ending and May-flowers are blooming, which excites my family and I, as we have been waiting for the weather to get warmer and soak up some sunshine and enjoy the warm outdoors. Many of you like us are probably waiting for the upcoming celebrations, the long weekend and the school holidays for the summer, which will be here before we know it :) Since I am missing the warmth of the sunshine with the cold rain and wind we are having these days, I decided my family and I need to taste something tropical to lift our moods up. 

The Craft of Kirigami: Birthday Card

I made this birthday card for my daughter by cutting the green Baroque swirls-square fold design in the center of this card using the Kirigami paper craft technique. I followed the instructions on the Creating Kirigami book by Carlos N. Molina to cut this intricate design. I have never heard of Kirigami before I saw this book, and was curious to find out what it is about, as I enjoy paper crafts.

Win a copy of Big Book of Kids' Birthday Cakes

It doesn't matter how old we get, our birthdays remain to be a special day. For a child celebrating their birthday with a beautifully structured cake with something they like on it such as dinosaurs or castles will make their day even more special. Although my family and I don't do big birthday celebrations, each year for my children's birthday I enjoy making a cake with their favourite character or liking that tends to change each year. 

Celebrating Baby Arrivals with a Printed or ebook from Blurb #Giveaway

I enjoy using Blurb to create my own photo books. This is a wonderful way to share stories, moments, travel pictures, recipes and more with family and friends. I like the ease of using blurb themes to make personalized books. These books are a wonderful way to express our memories and cherish special moments.

Origami Toys: Fish and Bird

My children and I really enjoyed learning and following the instructions from Paul Jackson's Origami Toys That Tumble, Fly and Spin book. I am glad the book had a pouch with 60 colourful origami paper to get us started right away. 

Styling our Hair

Having the same hairstyle everyday can get boring, so it is fun to change it up with lots of fun hairstyles. My daughter and I enjoyed doing a few of the hair-dos following the instructions in this Braid, Buns, and Twists book by Christina Butcher. The styles in the book are separated into ponytails, braids, bouffants, and buns knots and twists. 

Win a Copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada The Wonders of Winter

Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada The Wonders of Winter is a book that celebrates winter with stories from coast-to-coast that I enjoyed reading by myself, and reading to my children. Children will enjoy listening to these stories and ask for us to read more. These touching stories will remind us of our own experiences and make us feel proud to be Canadian.

Dinosaur and Reptile Themed Digital Books

The Berenstain Bears' Dinosaur Dig digital book app is about Berenstain Bears visiting the Bearsonian Museum when a real dinosaur dig is taking place. Read the book to find out what sort of fossils they find. We can explore pictures, learn new vocabulary, and personalize the story with our own narration.

My Mom Is a Foreigner, But Not to Me A Heartwarming Children's Story

My Mom Is a Foreigner, But Not to Me written by Julianne Moore and illustrated by Meilo So is a heartwarming story that made my children and I laugh, cry and cuddle. This book would be a wonderful gift for children any age, as it reminds us about a mother's special love.

Celebrating Snoopy with You Can Be Anything Digital Book Giveaway

We are big fans of Snoopy and Peanuts, and excited to announce Story Panda's You Can Be Anything Snoopy themed digital book. This book encourages children to think about all the awesome things they can be and teaches them that sky is the limit. Snoopy is the star of the show in this new iPad book app for kids. Charles M. Schulz’s You Can Be Anything story is a great way to talk to our children about their future and what they want to be.

Dad's Will Enjoy These DIY and Woodwork Books

Our dad's will enjoy getting colourful, useful books like this Do It Yourself and Woodwork, as the information on these books will help do quick fixes and larger projects. These go-to books are simple, easy to follow, and has lots of practical tips and techniques. My husband has used the Canadian edition of Do It Yourself to help him fix lots of things around the home from small to big jobs such as adjusting loose toilet seats, changing fuses, unblocking drains, fixing gutters and more. 

Win a copy of the Canadian Gardener's Guide

We were eagerly waiting to do gardening and thank God the weather in Toronto has become suitable for it :) The past few weeks we've been gardening, cleaning up, planning on what to plant, putting down some seeds, and basically getting ready for the season. 

You've probably seen my posts about the importance of using the correct gardening tools, equipment, having the right soil, and other posts about planting. I am a self-taught gardener, and get helpful information and knowledge by reading gardening books before I start my projects. 

A Gift For Dad: Handmade bookmark and Parker Urban Pen

For 125 years, Parker has created pens that redefine writing. Now as handwriting makes a comeback, it would be a perfect gift to give our dads or the men in our lives :)

This Parker Urban is a cool pen that redefines modern writing, as it combines ergonomics with art to give an unconventional shape. It has the perfect weight and balance to make beautiful curved writing. I really like the shine and the beautiful black colour body of the pen. This modern premium quality pen has an asymmetric cisele pattern, and provides durability and flamboyance. 

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.

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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.  

A Quilling Project In Celebration of the National Craft Month

I enjoying doing crafts since I was a child. I find doing crafts to be relaxing and enjoy it even when the crafts don't always turn out the way it is intended. Now my children and I enjoy doing crafts together.

This fabulous Craft: Techniques and Projects book composed by a team of craft experts has loads of of ideas that is sure to please a lot of people. There are six sections in the book separated by textile, paper craft, jewelry, ceramics and glass, candles and soap, and eco crafts. All the projects come with details about the tools and materials. There are templates in the back of the book that are useful to do the projects.  

I enjoy quilling or doing paper filigree, so I chose to do this quilled flower arrangement project from the book and placed the finished project in a frame.  

Quilling is a centuries-old art of making decorative shapes with paper. This craft is lots of fun and addictive once you learn how to do it. I think to enjoy and do the projects properly we need to have the correct tools.

For this project...

I used quilling paper that is sold pre-cut, however if you wish you can cut 1/8" wide coloured paper using a craft knife.  

Quilling tool or the book suggests we use a toothpick, however I haven't used a toothpick to do quilling.

Cardstock to paste the project.

2 tweezers helped me place the pieces.

PVA or transparent glue.

Toothpick and a post-it-note paper to put the glue.

To create this project I used the quilling tool to roll the paper then let it unravel a bit. After playing with the lightly unraveled piece of quilled paper to make shapes, I glued the end so the pieces don't unravel all the way. I planned on how I want to place the pieces before gluing the quilled shapes carefully using the tweezers. After the project was completed I displayed it in a frame.

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.