During these uncertain times, taking care of your mental health and emotional well being is just as important taking care of your physical health. Self-care refers to stress relieving activities that can help reduce anxiety and it supports your well being. The Long Branch Free Public Library has many free online resources to help you practice self care; our online catalog includes books that discuss health, fitness, beauty, meditation, wellness, yoga, and more!
GET CREATIVE!
Self care can include trying a new recipe, growing a plant, or simply making something new.
Summary of Groundbreaking Food Gardens from ElibraryNJ:
Follow your zany muse and get creative with your vegetable garden. Niki Jabbour brings you 73 novel and inspiring food garden designs that include a cocktail garden featuring all the ingredients for your favorite drinks, a spicy retreat comprising 24 varieties of chile peppers, and a garden that's devoted to supplying year-round salad greens. Created by celebrated gardeners, each unique design is accompanied by both plant lists and charming anecdotes. This fully illustrated collection glitters with off-beat personality and quirkiness.
Right Rose, Right Place by Peter Schneider
Summary of Right Rose, Right Place from Hoopla:
3509 Perfect Choices for Beds, Borders, Hedges, and Screens, Containers, Fences, Trellises, and More
Peter Schneider challenges the notorious myth that roses are difficult to grow, arguing that it's all about choosing the right petals for the right place! Providing in-depth profiles of hundreds of varieties, Schneider helps you decide which roses will work best in your flower bed or along an eye-catching garden trellis. Simple instructions that use proven techniques make growing roses easy and enjoyable, even in colder climates, while more than 400 gorgeous photos make this book as visually irresistible as it is useful.
Succulents Simplified by Debra Lee Baldwin
Summary from Hoopla:
Succulent plants are easy to grow and design with once you know the basics. And Debra Lee Baldwin, the bestselling author of Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens, is the ideal guide for gardeners, crafters, and DIYers looking for an introduction to these trendy, low-maintenance plants. Succulents Simplified is a complete primer on choosing, growing and designing with succulents. Along with gorgeous photos packed with design ideas, Debra offers her top 100 plant picks and explains how to grow and care for succulents no matter where you live. Step-by-step projects, including a cake-stand centerpiece, special-occasion bouquets, a vertical garden, and a succulent topiary sphere, will inspire you to express your individual style. Whether you're a novice or veteran, have an acre to fill or a few pots, live in Calexico or Canada, Succulents Simplified is a dazzling primer for success with succulents wherever you live!
Handpicked by Ingrid Carozzi
Summary of Handpicked from Hoopla:
Brooklyn-based florist Ingrid Carozzi reveals her secrets for creating flower arrangements that are modern, original, and organic in style. Organized by season, the book presents simple step-by-step instructions (how to measure, cut, and place each bloom) for making more than 35 arrangements. Whether you want to learn how to work with chicken wire and tape to create a simple framework or try your hand at arranging delicate and oversize blooms, Carozzi offers a detailed tutorial on her tricks of the trade. Readers are encouraged to source, make, or upcycle unexpected containers, such as rough-hewn wooden crates or vintage pots, jars, and vases. Full of natural floral compositions that marry the modern with the rustic, Handpicked is a lushly photographed, practical guide to creating your own exceptional flower arrangements at home.|Ingrid Carozzi is one of New York's most sought-after florists and the owner of the acclaimed Tin Can Studios in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Her work has been covered in publications such as Vogue, Martha Stewart Weddings, Design*Sponge, The Knot, and more.
Don't Throw It, Grow It! By Deborah Peterson
Summary of Don't Throw it, Grow it! from Hoopla:
Don't throw out your kitchen scraps - grow them! Discover how you can transform leftover pomegranate seeds, mango pits, and dried bits of ginger root into thriving plants. With clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions, this innovative guide shows you how to cultivate 68 common shoots, seeds, pits, roots, and tubers that might otherwise end up in the compost bin. From the common carrot to the exotic cherimoya, you'll be amazed at the gardening possibilities hidden in the foods you eat.
Learn a new hobby!
Creative Watercolor by Ana Victoria Calderon
Summary of Creative Watercolor from Hoopla:
Creative Watercolor offers beginners a fun, modern, and practical approach to a timeless medium with instructions on how to paint simple motifs and lettering and embellish projects beautifully. In Creative Watercolor, popular watercolor artist and workshop instructor Ana Victoria Calderon shares her step-by-step techniques for painting modern motifs in this classic medium. Through a series of easy tutorials and projects, you will: get an overview of basic materials and tools, plus options for embellishing your paintings. Master essential techniques, starting with easy warm-up activities, learning to layer, and getting into the flow with watercolor, plus an introduction to scanning and digital editing for making multiples. Learn to paint a variety of simple, beautiful motifs: flowers and leaves, butterflies and critters, fruits and vegetables, and delightful lettering. Use what you've learned to create unique, stylish stationery, including beautiful invitations, place cards, menus, monograms, recipe gift cards, thank you notes-any project you can imagine, for any kind of event you can think of! There's never been a better time to dive into the world of watercolor, so why wait? Grab a brush and get painting! Perfect for creative beginners, the books in the Art for Modern Makers series take a fun, practical approach to learning about and working with paints and other art mediums to create beautiful DIY projects and craft.
Cross Stitch for the Soul : 20 Designs to Inspire by Emma Congdon
Summary of Cross Stitch for the Soul from Hoopla:
Cross Stitch for the Soul is a collection of beautifully designed motivational and inspirational quotes rendered in easy cross-stitching techniques that will raise the spirits, both during the making process and beyond, as treasured pictures on the wall. Designed by leading cross stitch designer Emma Congdon, aka Stitchrovia, whose modern styling appeals to crafters of all ages and abilities, these inspiring quotes will provide comfort, motivation and an all-round positive spin on life, reminding us that we are brave, strong and have the power to make our own futures - one stitch at a time!
An Introduction To Hand Lettering With Decorative Elements by Annika Sauerborn
Summary of An Introduction to Hand Lettering with Decorative Elements from Hoopla:
A treasure trove of lettering styles and decorative elements, this handy reference offers an abundance of eye-catching alphabets, numerals, ribbons, borders, flowers, banners, and other easy-to-trace embellishments. With this guide, it's easy to add a personal touch-humorous, dramatic, or romantic-to any handwritten message or meditative journal.
Hundreds of ornaments, all of them hand-drawn by the author, include dozens of alphabets and numerals. You'll also find frames, flourishes, and corner designs that provide pages with a stylish finishing touch. Decorative motifs range from arrows, hearts, and stars to leaves, blossoms, and wreaths. A wealth of fanciful graphics for special occasions includes designs for birthdays, weddings, holidays, and all four seasons. Calligraphers, crafters, and illustrators as well as anyone who wants to add a bit of pizzazz to their writing will prize this imaginative source of inspiration.
Macramé Plant Hangers by Chrysteen Borja
Summary of Macrame Plant Hangers from Hoopla:
Adorn your cozy interiors with hand-woven knotted art and hanging plants.
Are you a DIY home decorator, plant lover, or flower lover? We got you!
Macramé plant hangers are the perfect little touch to accent your cozy, designer home. Macramé-the art of knotting made popular in the seventies-is now on a revival, bringing trendy boho vibes into your living room, bedroom, and more. And there's simply no better way to display your hanging plants than stringing them up in handmade woven knots.
Whether you're a novice or seasoned knotter, Macramé Plant Hangers provides thirty quirky, yet stunning projects that will spark your DIY artist's imagination and get you creating. Follow detailed photographs and instructions to construct patterns with various natural fibers, including cotton rope, felted wool, silk ribbon, jute, recycled fabric, and more. There are knotted projects suitable for bigger eight-inch pots, small four-inch pots, vintage bottles, and even air plants.
Including a practical beginner's section of knot basics; an introduction to weaving; customizable variations to add playful beads, funky fringes, and chic rope tassels to your macramé design for "whimsy"; and a bonus chapter on special projects that mix macramé with a dash of weaving and earthy elements, Macramé Plant Hangers is your handy guidebook to adorning interiors with your own custom hand-knotted, vintage art you can be proud of-while keeping it green!
Get Active!
My Yoga At Home Workout Videos on Hoopla
You can find even more Yoga Videos here!
Listen to music, try a new audio book, or meditate. Hoopla has curated playlists perfect for many genres and moods.
Curated Playlists:
Audio Books
View ElibraryNJ’s & Hoopla's full collection on Self Improvement audio books here!
The Path Made Clear by Oprah Winfrey
Summary of The Path Made Clear from ElibraryNJ:
Everyone has a purpose. And, according to Oprah Winfrey, "Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honor your calling in the best way possible."
That journey starts right here.
In her latest book, The Path Made Clear, Oprah shares what she sees as a guide for activating your deepest vision of yourself, offering the framework for creating not just a life of success, but one of significance. The book's ten chapters are organized to help you recognize the important milestones along the road to self-discovery, laying out what you really need in order to achieve personal contentment, and what life's detours are there to teach us.
Oprah opens each chapter by sharing her own key lessons and the personal stories that helped set the course for her best life. She then brings together wisdom and insights from luminaries in a wide array of fields, inspiring readers to consider what they're meant to do in the world and how to pursue it with passion and focus. These renowned figures share the greatest lessons from their own journeys toward a life filled with purpose.
Paired with over 100 awe-inspiring photographs to help illuminate the wisdom of these messages, The Path Made Clear provides readers with a beautiful resource for achieving a life lived in service of your calling - whatever it may be.
The Kindness Method by Shahroo Izadi
Summary of The Kindness Method from Hoopla:
The Kindness Method is the key to breaking unwanted habits-for good! Combining her own therapeutic style, personal experiences, and techniques learned from working in the field of substance abuse, Shahroo Izadi shares simple steps that strengthen your willpower like a muscle, allowing you to sustain your motivation and make lasting change in your life.
Shahroo's completely non-judgmental process for mapping and channeling your habits is based on the principle of treating yourself with the compassion and understanding that it is often only reserved for other people. From procrastination to issues of body image, this method works by creating a custom plan-mapped by you, for you, and driven by self-motivation.
View Hoopla’s full collection of Mediation audio books here!
What's Beyond Mindfulness? by Stephen Fulder
Summary of What's Beyond Mindfulness? from Hoopla:
This book reveals exactly how radical, exciting, and life-changing the full picture of Buddhist ideas about concepts such as compassion, joy, detachment, and liberation can be. Its key aim, however, is to do this in a way that appeals to everyone, whether they are interested in Buddhism or not. Written in simple, straightforward language, What's Beyond Mindfulness? contains fifty essays covering every aspect of modern life, ranging from the mundane to the spiritual. Topics include how to be fulfilled at work, how to relate to money, what mindfulness really means, how to find the magic of the moment, and much, much more. This book will imbue your life with the sense of magic and mystery that you felt as a child, allowing you to put down the burdens of anxiety, joylessness, restlessness, or a judging mind, and it will do all this by enabling you to shift your experience of the world in a truly profound way.