Christmas Crafting Goodies

I hope the rest of you were as lucky as I was. Failing that, I hope that you all had a nice relaxing Christmas. I came off night shift and was ran round after by my dad and my sister. I even managed to win a game of monopoly in my fatigued state without stealing from the bank (which I would obviously never ever do).  It was a nice few days and I am now finishing off another week of night shift before I get to have time off for Hogmanay.

As every year, I was spoiled rotten but I got a lot of crafting goodies. It was extra special because they were picked out by people who clearly put a lot of thought into it. This first was not a Christmas gift. In the countdown to Christmas Homemaker Magazine were hosting daily giveaways of books that won their Arts and Crafts book awards 2016. When I see these things I always put my name down with absolutely no expectation of winning and usually forget I have even done it. So I was pleasantly surprised when Homemaker got in touch via twitter to say that I had won. I am now the proud owner of this lovely embroidery book. As you know I love a craft book and I can't wait to read through it on my time off. I promise to review it for you soon. They also sent me this months Homemaker which was very kind of them. I already have this edition so I will pass it on to my sister.

My sister's gift was mainly yarny related. Lorraine, as you know, is an artist and while she has tried her hand at yarn crafts it's not her thing. She picked out this lovely merino wool by DMC because it matched my room. The yarn is lovely and soft and I can't wait to work with it. I have plans for a cushion and I think I'll try out the pattern I learned from the hook role kit. Or I might use bobbles, I haven't 100% decided.

Now I have talked about Wool and the Gang before and how much I would love to try their product. I follow the company on Instagram and Facebook and I am always salivating (lovely image for you) over their images. Lorraine was completely unaware of this and she not only got me two balls of their cotton yarn but she got them in my favourite colours. Very generous of her as these yarns can be expensive. I can't wait to work with them.

 
She also noticed that I have been doing a lot of crochet of late and so I also got this lovely little book. It has some lovely quick crochet projects in it. I have earmarked the wool and the gang yarn for one of the hats within it.  This will be another book for me to review for you.

My dad also got my sister and I a colouring book. This was a surprise as I didn't think he approved of spending time colouring. I love Johanna Basford colouring books and I don't have this one. I have a thing for greens and blues and the moment and I plan to go made with them in this.

I equally got my sister some creative gifts in the form of art supplies. I got her some water colour pens that I knew she had never tried before and some lovely travel sketch books and pastels. I actually had a little gift envy as I picked them out for her. Can't wait to see what she does with them and I will encourage her to blow the cobwebs off her blog with a post on it.

I hope that you all were able to have some creative outlets in the festive period and I hope that you enjoy your New Year. I am planning on a final post for 2016 but if I don't manage all the best for 2017.

Personalised Colouring

My sister has been telling me for weeks that she has been working on something for me but of course won't tell me what it is. No matter how much I nagged. Although once she did almost cave. I assumed it was some kind of art work as it was something that took more than a night (if it was sewing she would have it done in a day or two). Monday she came over for dinner and presented her finished gift. It was my very own personalised colouring book.

It contains all the things I love, mushrooms, owls, fish, seahorses and dragonflies. She ensured that it was extra leafy because she knows how much I love the leaves. She scanned the images into her computer and printed them out onto extra thick card before binding the pages. The card thickness was so that I could use pen or pencil.

She even printed out a few extra pages so that she could colour with me. A happy night was spent on Monday with the two of us colouring away. Me with pen and my sister with pencil.

Personally I think my sister should set up an etsy page where people can buy their own colouring book. My Pins I Love post on Adult Colouring show that this can be successful. Not sure my sister is keen on the idea though. In the meantime I have a unique colouring book that no one else has.

Pins I Love - Adult Colouring

I actually don't like the term 'adult colouring' sounds a bit suggestive and I would almost be too wary of typing it in to google for fear of what might come up. Or does that say more about my mind? Regardless I still love it and you don't have to buy these large books if you don't want to. I thought I would scour my adult colouring board on pinterest to see if there was anything I could link here. I have to admit that there were a few missing links which was a shame but I think I found a nice selection and failing that there is nothing to stop you from having a wee search to see if there is something that suits your taste more.

This first one is an ebook on offer from Dawn Nicole Designs. Yes, you have to pay for it but you are helping to support an indie designer and I'm all for sending out support to indies. When looking at the blog it is clear that the author likes to craft in general. I like the feel of her blog. It's light and airy. Definitely go have a look.

 

I love this one. It's quite cute. This is part of a Halloween colouring book by Chubby Mermaid (LOVE the name) and can be found on etsy. The designer has a whole series of rather sweet colouring books that you can download (for a charge). She even has some individual pages that you can purchase for downloading so you don't even have to buy a whole book.

Sugar skulls are another fad that's around just now, although maybe that one is starting to cool down. I still like them and it helps that I have a skull loving sister (who loved them before there was a fad). These skulls are a free download from The Country Chic Cottage and they have a whole host of free colouring pages. The skulls though are my favourite. The blog is more of a lifestyle type blog. I've added it to the mixed craft blog list as there are a few things in there that might appeal to different people.

This last one is another along the sugar skulls line. Like the last set of pages this is free and comes from a website filled with lots of different pages. It's actually a resource website for kids filled with educational pages as well as colouring. Still, there might bee something there for everyone.

This last one is from Johanna Basford's Enchanted Forest book. I decided to post this image to show just how creative people can be with their colouring. On Tuesday I linked to her webpage. She has a whole gallery filled with examples of her pages coloured. Definitely go have a look as some of them are so pretty and may inspire.

The important thing though is that you have fun with it. After all colouring is meant to be relaxing.

A Little Bit of Colour

If you want to know why I haven't been as successful with my January plans (more on that later) then this is it. Adult colouring is a fad that has been on the scene for the last year or two. It allows a person to get back in touch with their inner child and it's relaxing. Hands up who remembers spending time colouring as a child and can say it was a positive experience. I bet just about everyone and the only temper tantrums were when a sibling ruins a page by going outside the lines or when the ink pens bled through the paper.

I started off with one book and one small packet of pencils. That one book has grown to three and two postcard sets. I love it and I could (and have) spend hours on it.

I started off with Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford and then quickly added her Secret Garden postcards. I like the fact that the postcards were portable which meant I could colour on my break at work (something I did only once or twice). Basford actually has a blog and she has some videos on there where she gives suggestions on how to colour. I like these books for their fairy tale style.

Next I got a book that appealed to my inner geek, Dr Who. Actually, I picked up this one and the Sherlock Holmes as a gift for my sister. I just happened to order the Dr Who at the same time. I was actually worried that my sister the artist would be insulted by these but she actually loved it. We spent much of Christmas on these and lots of stormy days in too.

While on holiday I got my second set of cards called Animal Kingdom by Millie Marotta.  However, I only started using them a few weeks ago. The lines in these are much narrower and so I got myself some Stalibo 88 pens which I felt were find enough for the designs.

Lastly I got myself Lost Ocean by Johanna Basford. I loved drawing ocean scenes when I was little and so this appealed. I haven't actually finished anything in it yet but give it time. I did start some jellyfish (love a jellyfish).

What I also like about them is that they are still open to interpretation. You can see the difference just between my sister and I. Plus if you go onto instagram or pinterest and do a search using the book titles you will come across even more.

You don't even have to have an expensive set of pencils or pens. I originally started with Crayola pencils but moved on to Derwent when the Crayola's began breaking through being carted around so much. I have also begun collecting the Faber pencils which you can buy loose. Expensive but they offer a greater range of colour choices. The Stalibo 88 I have always liked and have often bought them for my sister.

If you want to have a go yourself there are lots of resources online. You don't have to purchase the books. Crafts Beautiful, the website for the magazine, has some sample pages that you can download and try. I came across those thanks to their twitter account. One of my favourite bloggers is a fashion designer and an illustrator and she has posted some of her own colouring pages too which you are free to print out. Her blog is called The Spinsterhood Diaries and she's one of the few blogs I still follow having come across it on Glipho (before it closed down).