We believe in supporting small business all year round, but the holidays are an especially great time to shop from our mama members! You’ve seen the quote blocks on social media, that when you support a small business you’re supporting their families and communities. And it’s true!

We wanted to make it easy for you to support small business, so we’ve brought back our Holiday Gift Guide for everyone on your list. Each of these ideas are from our incredibly smart and talented mamapreneur members who will each do a happy dance when your order comes through, we promise :)

For Mamas

Know someone interested in learning how to grow herbs, fruit or vegetables in their front yard, backyard or on a balcony? Give the gift of homegrown organic food with The Good Seed!

A gift certificate to Oakville’s Baby Float Spa + Studio is a great gift for parents with babies/toddlers. They offer Prenatal yoga, Mom and Baby fitness classes, Baby and Me Sensory Art and Music programs, Babies on the Moo...

There are several reasons for making expressive writing (aka journaling) an essential part of your lifestyle. But in a nutshell, the main reason is this: you have the answer. Yes, just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you have always had the power to go home. Now, I fully appreciate Glinda the Good Witch’s methods in allowing Dorothy the opportunity to discover this for herself. The experience of facing your fears in service of love and watching the monster disintegrate before your eyes is a far more powerful way of driving home the message than telling her straight out that she always had it in her to overcome her worst fears. But, this is a blog post and we only have so much time and space, so I am taking it upon myself to cut to the chase.

YOU HAVE THE ANSWER. After 20 plus years of practice and training as a psychologist, I have earned the authority to tell you this. I have spoken to 1000’s of people in my professional role, which has afforded me the great privilege and opportuni...

Women live longer than men and typically earn less while taking more breaks from the workforce to raise kids. By 2026, Canadian women will control close to half of all accumulated financial wealth in the country and yet studies show that women feel less confident about their finances than men. A lack of financial confidence leads to increased worry, sleepless nights and insecurity over your family’s financial future. No fun. But, it doesn’t have to be that way!

It doesn’t matter what age you are if you’ve got debt or a million dollars in your chequing account, we all worry about money. Especially once we have children. The stakes get higher and the cost of daily life skyrockets – hello daycare years! 

We need to figure out a way to financially survive our daily life and still enjoy it. That’s how you feel empowered, confident and excited about your finances.

The solution is threefold:

Firstly, you need to stop overbudgeting. You know what I’m talking about. A massive excel spreadsheet ...

As Mamapreneurs, many of us work from home and having the right home office space is so important! When Mamas & Co. first suggested I write a blog about designing the perfect home office, I looked around my office space and had a revelation... my own office was not working for me! I had all the right things (ergonomic chair, bookcases, filing cabinet, a few artfully designed vignettes), but my home office had become cluttered, and ineffective.

There were stacks of magazines and business cards, product samples, old tech collecting dust on the floor, stuff I never had time to deal with. So at five o'clock on a Friday night when I should have been starting dinner prep, I started hauling junk out of my space so I could do a deep dive.

I set to work to change the situation I had found myself in, the classic ‘shoe-makers’-children-have-no-shoes’ situation.

I tried following the advice of organizational guru Marie Kondo, by creating piles of like things but I was not finding any j...

As I write this, I am watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean, palm trees swaying in the wind, salty air on my skin. Our children are playing in the waves as the sky transforms, a moving painting of swirling colours. We are literally living in paradise.

Our family sabbatical to Puerto Escondido, Mexico began in December 2017 and will soon be coming to an end in April 2018. It was born of a breakdown (mine!), one that led us to take this intentional time together as a family.

What we didn’t know, is that this adventure would transform us. We are closer than ever as a family. Our daughters, ages four and six, are thriving and learning Spanish. Our view of the world has changed, and more importantly, we have clarity on the life that we want to design for ourselves.

I am excited to share these five simple steps that will help you take a family sabbatical of your own!

Step 1: Align with Your Partner

This is by far the most important step of them all! Get clear with your partner o...

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the hype, the lights, and the billboards this time of year. But it’s just as easy to support small businesses - and in doing so, you’ll not only be giving thoughtful gifts but you'll also be helping dreams come true for the business owners and their families. 

To help you support small businesses this holiday season, we’ve put together our 2nd annual Holiday Gift Guide, featuring gifts for everyone on your list from some of our amazing Mamas & Co. members!

For Mamas

For any new mamas in your life, we love the Tenth Moon Mothercare packages full of nurturing and healthy essentials to help her take care of herself postpartum (shown above). And because accessorizing with a teething infant can be a challenge, treat her to funky and beautiful jewelry from Oz and Ella that is chewable for the little ones too!

Treat yourself or a friend to some lash and brow pampering at the Beauty Babe Lounge in midtown Toronto. And for the beauty enthusiast on your list,...

Brand presence is the next big tactic in your overall SEO strategy. You’ve heard of SEO – search engine optimization – right?! If not, Google it. And that highlights the definition: SEO is the magic of bringing your content to the top of a Google search.

Since the dawn of time (OK, since 1990 when the first search engine was created in Canada - you’re welcome, world),  search engine optimizers (SEO’ers for short) have tried to influence search engines to make their page appear at the top of a search result.

Because of this, sophisticated engines like Google must crackdown on tactics that influence their results. A great way to do this is to recognize brand presence and monitor for industry relevance and consistency.  

Brand presence is everywhere your brand exists online. This can be through social media, directories, reviews, your website, guest blogs, and that random ancestory.ca account you created once. It all adds up to a blueprint of what you or your business is about.

Brand ...

At least once a week we get a post on our Mamas & Co. member forum that is a cry for help. Someone somewhere is in need of critical social media assistance STAT! Whether it’s Facebook ads or the latest Instagram feature, there is a lot of confusion about the best ways to tackle social media. All the various platforms are constantly changing their features, their functions, their formulas. So much so that even a seasoned pro can get tripped-up. But (thankfully) another member always swoops in with the solution.

This blog post is not for the seasoned pro.

This post is for the average mama entrepreneur or a first-time business owner. This is for the entrepreneur who feels overwhelmed by it all (as I often did and, I confess still do sometimes). This post is not going to give you all the answers to the social media puzzle, but I hope it sheds some light on the topic and gives you some guidance. After all, if you’re a mama entrepreneur, time is precious and you want to get the most ...