Create Your Life Book is a truly uplifting and inspirational guide to self-fulfillment through art. Tamara Laporte's gentle voice leads readers through 18 step-by-step mixed-media projects designed to overcome personal challenges and encourage positive self-worth. With contributions from talented guest teachers, this book offers a rich variety of artistic expressions that will not only spark creativity but also foster personal growth and healing. A must-read for anyone seeking courage, gratitude, and self-love on their creative journey.

Art books are my favorite , they are so relaxing and we learnt a new thing. This book explains about mixed media art........

While an interesting concept and beautifully illustrated, this book was more fun to flip through than useful as a practice going forward.

The publisher was kind enough to provide me with a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own and honest.

This book is beautiful and inspiring. I never thought I would actually use anything from it because I have no intentions of creating a Life Book but boy was I wrong! I'm happy to say that there are so many techniques and inspiring ideas in this book that any artist can find something from this book. I love the way the artists find purpose in the art that they are creating. My favourite projects are Follow the Light and Looking Inward. I have tried out some of the techniques used in this book on other art projects but I will be honest in saying I haven't done a full project. I am looking forward to using them this year though to help guide my mediation practice and to fill my space with positive energy. I highly recommend this book for any artist, but especially those that want inspiration for pieces with a specific purpose or those that would like to create a life book. Who knows, maybe one day I will have one!

Cute and very relaxing to read. I got so much positive vibes out of the activities provided in this book. While they're not particularly my style, I learned a lot about colours and how to apply lighting and shadows to faces and such. I don't have all the supplies listed in this book, so I just used which ones I have available. But I'm now curious to try out the ones I don't have, I feel like it will give my artworks a different feel.

I would have loved to read and try to projects. I simply had an issue that happened in my Kindle and the complete file was not able to be retrieved. =(

Each themed chapter has 4 to 5 two-part projects. These are the following chapter themes:
-- Letting Go, Manifesting & Celebrating
-- Self-Love, Grounding & Being Present
-- Honoring & Healing
-- Transformation, Strength & Gratitude
-- Binding Your Life Book
-- Final Words of Encouragement
The first step is to explore a common issue that hampers creativity and/or positive self-worth.
The second portion is a step-by-step mixed-media art project specially designed to help you work through that issue.
Great way to open up inspiration.

*I received a free ARC in exchange for an honest review by NetGalley*

Very sweet, creative guide to use art in your everyday life. The artist and author, Tamara Laporte, is famed for offering unique online workshops designed for self-discovery and personal development. Tamara's original techniques make the entire process fun and fantastical.

This is a beautiful book and it is well written. I love the colors of LaPorte’s drawings and her project instructions are easy to follow. I am purchasing this book for my library collection.

A beautiful book and ideal for a beginner wanting to get into journaling. The book is laid out in a series of lessons stepping the reader though change, let go and growing yourself.
The lessons are lovely, easy and fun to do, I just found that at the end everyone doing this project and following the lessons would have a replica of this book - therefore my opinion the this is good for a beginner. I would have like a few more opportunities of making it your own - although there is nothing stopping anyone from doing different visuals and creating there own pages.
I enjoyed this and it is a good basis to start on and get the creative juices flowing.

This is a lovely workbook of projects and ideas for self-therapeutic art journaling. The instructions are detailed but leave plenty of room for personal experimentation, and the sample art is gorgeous. I particularly liked the inclusion of instructions for binding finished works together into a book - a useful way to keep these kinds of projects together!

Read and loved this book; and will no doubt continue to read and love this book every year, because every year will be different! A beautiful, bright, colourful guide to help you process what is going on in your life, your head and dare I say it for fear of being called 'hippy' - your soul!
The older I get, the more into self-reflection and self-development I find I am getting; that's not to mean I am getting more into myself and becoming selfish, but exploring how I tick in order to make sense of the world around me. We encourage children to do it all the time, but why not continue into adulthood and use the same beautiful methods of words and picture, be creative and enjoy the process!

Wonderful book. I was really inspired. So much so that I've bought lots of crafting materials and ordered a hard copy. Cannot wait for it to be delivered.

I love this book! Over 18 projects, you are encouraged to try new art techniques while thinking about different aspects of your life - it's like art therapy in your own home. I did at first think perhaps some of the projects would be a bit cheesy, but actually they're quite lovely in generating feel-good moments. And, anything that gets me dabbling back with art after far, far too long can only be a good thing!

Gorgeous step-by-step instructions on using art to explore yourself. Even if the style of art is not to your personal taste, I recommend trying the exercises, exploring the materials, as a meditation to take you out of your everyday self. Some great mixed-media techniques, if you lack spray inks, try watering down paint in cheap spray bottles instead (alcohol spray inks will give better blending results in general). A great book for the new year!

I really enjoyed Create Your Life Book by Tamara Laporte! It inspired me so much that I actually tried my hand at art journaling. I highly recommend checking the book out.

Overall: 3/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Ideas: 4/5
Cover: 4/5
--------------------
Originally I expected it to be a workbook instead of an artwork instruction book, so after I finished reading it I was a little bit disappointed, but the book is fully illustrated, printed in color and some artworks were pretty nice, so overall I do like it. I liked the idea of the whole project --- since that I've always believed that art is a good way for self-healing and self-discovery --- but I hoped there were more kinds of artworks, different in style. Good book anyway. Thank you, NetGalley.

I love art, but am not an artist - writing is much easier. I love that this book includes writing exercises in the art process, and many projects include templates you can personalize. The pages of the life book will include a safe house for your inner child, a warden to guard the book from prying eyes, a beautiful gratitude tree, and many others - there are just enough pages to move through my life and experience healing, but not so many that I get overwhelmed by the thought of creating them.

The whole book is just beautiful, and Tamara Laporte really distills each technique into understandable language, while still citing research and sources, should you want to dig deeper. I also appreciated her use of collaborators - not every project will look like the one on the cover (which is about acknowledging and healing the inner critic).

As far as materials, Laporte definitely recommends some art supplies that non-artists won't have lying around, but every one of these pages can be made with simple paper, glue, scissors, and markers. Or go ahead and splurge - bring out your inner beauty to its fullest!

Overall, this book was a delight to read, an enlightening, healing experience, and I plan to buy a hard copy so I can really dive in.

Excellent instructive guide for the beginner of art journaling for therapeutic use. Instruction is clear and concise.

When I saw this on Netgalley, I know I had to try to get it to review.  I realized that I need the actual book to be able to sit down to learn this.  If I had a copy on my ipad, it would have been easier for me to read it better tan in the Adobe Digital Editions program.

The author explains what a life book is.  She wants people to find their creativity.  Time is spent on what art supplies is needed.  She breaks the book down into projects with how you can heal yourself.  For example, Projects 1-4 are under the title letting go.  I absolutely love the Zen Butterfly.  I can see me working on this one.  I love that there is Zentangle in it.  That is something else I have wanted to learn, but time has not been kind.  Each project is broken down into sections on a 2 page spread showing the reader actually what is coming next.  Another 2 page spread shows how to put it all together. 

Love the "No One Alive is Youer than You" project using a quirky bird.  I also loved the  Seeds of Love project.  I take from this book is that I need to slow down and learn the items I have been wanting to do.

☆☆☆☆
I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
Recommend this book? Yes! Author? Yes!
Read more from this author? Yes!

Happy Reading!
Melissa