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I was recently sent these three books to review, and man have I had fun working through them!

The first one is called The Origami Garden: Perfectly Mindful Origami (by Mark Bolitho) and it comes with pretty papers and all the instructions you need to create your own paper garden! Some of my favorites were the Palm Leaf, Cactus in a Pot, and the Butterfly. Definitely worth a look if you love origami as much as I do!

The second one is Drawing Calm: Relax, Refresh, Refocus with 20 drawing, painting, and collage workshops inspired by Klimt, Klee, Monet and more (by Susan Evenson). This book is perfect to get your creative juices flowing if you feel a bit stuck, or to get a group of ladies together for a fun project over a bottle of wine. I think kids would really enjoy the exercises too, so a great play date with your littles.

For me, art is my meditation. It is the best way I've found to calm my mind and unwind, so this book is filled with great exercises to help me de-stress. I'm only up to Chapter Three so far, but already I've illustrated my grocery list, played around with tissue paper painting, drawn all different types of trees, and painted a variety of flowers!

The third book is Cut and Create; Paper Mosaics — Craft mosaic-by-number artworks with paper tiles, scissors and glue (by Chiharu Rosenberg). The book comes with beautiful mosaic templates and all the paper you need to complete them.  My favorites are the mermaid, white lilies and fox in the forrest designs. 

Do you have a favorite art exercise book to get you out of a rut, or help you try something new?