Recent(ish) Additions to My Instagram Sale

As I mentioned the other day, I've come up with a plan so I can post parcels without having to go to the Post Office: I've found a parcel postbox near me, I've ordered lots of stamps online, and a wonderful friend has offered to send me a roll of customs labels - hurrah!

This means I can start sending out orders from my Instagram sale page again. I'm in the middle of stocking up on packaging supplies so you may have to wait for me to ship some larger items, but if there's anything you've got your eye on please get in touch.

Here's a selection of the items still available from the sales I held in March...

A couple of gorgeous vintage atlases, perfect for framing and/or using in paper crafts.

 

A very pretty jigsaw puzzle (so soothing!).

A selection of craft books.

 

 

Some lovely First Day Covers featuring gorgeous stamps. These would look really nice framed or propped up on a bookshelf or picture ledge.

 

 

A brand new Leuchtturm notebook, still in its packaging.

Some floral fabric, including a vintage Laura Ashley print!

A charming brooch to pin to your jacket.

A colouring book full of birds.

And an absolutely fabulous vintage bedspread.

 
Click here to view everything I've got listed!

If it's not marked as "sold" or "sold pending payment", it's almost certainly still available. You can message me on Instagram or get in touch via my contact form and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Book Review: Evolution: A Colouring Book

Colouring books are everywhere at the moment, as I'm sure you've noticed. I'm a big fan of the trend (I do love a nice bit of colouring in) so I was delighted to get a copy of this one to review...

Evolution: A Colouring Book, by Annu Kilpelainen "takes the concept of a colouring book and, well, evolves it a bit."

The book covers topics such as natural selection, continental drift and the mystery of what killed the dinosaurs.

It also includes lots of interactive elements. There are flaps to lift up, sea creatures to draw...

... and faces to mix and match to explore how our facial features have evolved over time.

There's also an experiment to follow and, of course, lots of great drawings to colour!

I tested the pages with colouring pencils and pens, and they both worked great.

The pages of the book are nice and thick so the pen didn't show through at all, hurrah!

This isn't something I'd buy for myself (it's not really part of the "adult colouring book trend") but it is the sort of colouring / activity book which I would have loved as a kid.

Dinosaurs + colouring in + science + fun interactive pages = an excellent combination!

Evolution: A Colouring Book is published by Cicada Books. RRP £9.95. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, the Book Depository and many other bookshops.

Please note: I was sent a free review copy of this book. The Amazon and Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.  

P.S. for more colouring goodness, check up my round-ups of awesome colouring books for grown ups - part one and part two.

#Crafting365 Days 56-73: Juggling Lots of WIPs + Trying New Things

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of crafty goodness along the way!

On day 56 of my #Crafting365 challenge, I finished stitching the final few squares of the Christmas quilt I'm making for my sister. There's still lots of sewing to do before this is an actual quilt, but it's great to have the patchwork finished after all those hours of hand stitching.

When I tried to take photos of the finished quilt top, our little old lady cat demanded that I pay attention to her instead of this weird thing on the floor so most of my photos turned out like this:

On day 57 I did some relaxing knitting in the evening, and soaked up some creative inspiration from UPPERCASE magazine. UPPERCASE is always awesome but I'm especially loving this colour-themed issue.

I did some more knitting on day 58 and (with rainbows on the brain) I sorted through my stash of squares and planned out the colour order for my rainbow blanket.

Don't all those bright colours look delicious together?

Day 59 involved more knitting, although with slightly less colourful yarn than the stuff I'm using to knit my rainbow squares!

This is a much neglected project with a woodland animal theme. I've got lots of hours to put in on this if I'm going to meet my planned deadline of Christmas (and it's nearly the end of November already, eek!)

On day 60 I went to Renegade and spent several hours oohing over all the awesome wares for sale and doing a bit of shopping. In the afternoon, I visited the Foundling Museum to see their current (excellent and very moving) exhibition, The Fallen Woman. While enjoying a cuppa and a very tasty brownie in the museum cafe, I doodled a whole bunch of new project ideas on a napkin.

I love visiting exhibitions, etc, on my Nice Days Out but I also love the time to think that a day out on your own away from work and deadlines gives you. I often find myself scribbling down new ideas in cafes or on my train journey home after a busy day of going new places and seeing new things.

(Psst - that awesome crafty tattoo is a fun temporary one from Floss & Mischief)

I was feeling a bit under the weather for days 61-64 so I just ended up doing lots and lots of simple knitting while curled up watching TV. Not very exciting crafting, but better than nothing and look at all the squares I finished!

On day 65 I decided I'd had enough of all this sleepy knitting and had a Making Day - minimising my screen time to focus on Actually Making Stuff.

One of my projects for the day was to finally cut out some more felt flowers for my in-progress cushion project. I ran out of flowers back in September and the project has been on pause ever since. It was nice to get back to working with all this colour!

I started adding the new flowers to the cushion on day 66 - pinning and tacking them in position ready to sew later. Finding the best place for each shape is a bit like doing a felt-y jigsaw puzzle!

The next evening (day 67) I did some knitting and some relaxing colouring in while we watched TV. This is a fun Evolution-themed colouring book which I was sent to review - well, you can't review a colouring book without actually colouring it, right?

On day 68 I revisited a project that has been sitting half-finished in my "in progress" box for years: felt bird ornaments from a vintage craft kit I bought way back in 2011. I am so terrible at finishing my personal projects!   

Fingers crossed I can finally get all the birds finished in time to display them this Christmas!

Day 69 involved yet more blanket squares. That yellow is growing on me more and more with each square I knit.

 

Then on days 70 and 72 I tried something a bit different from my usual makes.

I've done a few projects for docrafts Creativity magazine of the past couple of years and the magazine always comes with a crafty cover gift (or three!). I thought it was high time I used them to make stuff.

First up: card making with decoupage kits and coordinating papers from the Forever Friends range (very cute!).

The next day I put together some more card toppers - foiled Christmas designs, cute kittens and vintage-y florals. I don't have any of the proper mounts/dots you're supposed to use to stick the layers together, so I got creative and used double sided sticky tape and little pieces of white felt to create the 3D effect :)

I've never made any kits like this before and I don't often work with patterns and pictures, so dipping my toes into this kind of card making is proving to be a really fun creative challenge.

I was back to my regular crafting on day 72, doing lots of sewing with a kitty keeping me company!

Those Christmas pudding ornaments are based on one of the earliest tutorials I shared on my blog. I cut the pieces out last year planning (I think) on making a few different versions of the pudding ornaments to show how you could vary the pattern. Sadly I failed to write down what I'd planned to make and I've since forgotten! Oops. So, instead, I'm just stitching up the ornaments and I'll be adding them to my sample sale sometime soon.

Then yesterday (day 73) I worked on a whole bunch of different crafty things.

I almost finished the vintage bird ornaments (I need to buy some ribbon before I can actually finish them but at least they look like birds now!)... I finished the Christmas puddings... I put together some charming Gorjuss decoupage kits (more Creativity freebies) ... and I used some colourful crepe paper samples to make some stripy cards.

Right, time to stop blogging and to go do some more making...

#Crafting365 Days 49-55: Autumn Colour & Lots of Glitter

The past week or so of my #Crafting365 project has mostly involved snatching small bits of creative, crafty time between work tasks and other things on my To Do list. I'm half sad that I've just been crafting in these little snippets, and half happy that my #Crafting365 challenge made me focus and actually use that time to make stuff instead of just letting it slip away.

I must try and schedule some proper making days this month!

On day 49 I used the felt leaves I'd cut out the day before to make an autumnal branch. I'm not 100% sure this works (it maybe looks like the branch is on fire??) but I quite like it, and it was a very fun make. Three of these displayed in a vase would look awesome!

I'd actually painted this branch aaaaages ago - I painted a few twigs when working on this bird mobile, as featured in docrafts Creativity magazine, then chose my favourites to use as the base for the mobile. It seemed a shame to just throw away the leftover branch, so I kept it... waiting for just the right project to come along.

If you want to make your own autumnal branch, it's very easy. Collect a fallen branch/twig and (if needed) let it dry. Paint it white (I used two coats of white acrylic paint from docrafts' Artiste range). Cut out a selection of leaves in autumnal colours - I used felt but you could use coloured paper or card instead. Then when the paint has completely dried, use a glue gun to attach the leaves to the branch.

Day 50 was a very busy deadline day, so I just did some a bit of colouring in to help me relax and wind down in the evening. Have you caught the colouring in bug yet? I am well and truly hooked, and delighted that there are so many great "adult" colouring books to choose from these days.

Day 52 involved lots of glitter! I needed sparkly silver baubles but couldn't find them in the size I wanted, so I used some glue and lots and lots of glitter to turn plain white baubles into super sparkly ones. Messy but lots of fun!

I also did some more simple knitting in the evening, which was also my craft of choice the evening of day 52. Knitting these simple garter stitch squares is such a great way to switch off my brain after a hectic day of rushing around ticking things off To Do lists.

I couldn't resist taking a snap of my knitting with some leaves in the background. Such yummy autumn colours!

The knitting continued on day 53...

I finished the orange squares and started knitting with the next colour: yellow. My mum was slightly concerned that I had started a crazily bright orange blanket (she is not a fan of orange) but I explained that these squares are just for the orange and yellow section of my happy rainbow blanket. With just a few colours still to add, I am getting quite excited about seeing this blanket come together!

The next day (Saturday) was supposed to be day 54 of my #Crafting365 project, but I took a Nice Day Out and went to Bath and spent a long and lovely day exploring the city, visiting lots of museums and exhibitions and generally enjoying the glorious autumn sunshine... then when I got home I just crashed on the sofa and forgot to do any crafting! Oops.

One of the exhibitions I visited - Nahoki Kojima's amazing Honey Bee paper cut sculpture, at the Holburne Museum - was kind of crafty? But that really doesn't count, does it?

So, instead, I am counting Sunday's craftiness as day 54. I've skipped two days of this daily project in about 50 days, which isn't too bad, right??

On Sunday I took a break from all that knitting and added the final rows of squares to my Christmas Quilt (I'm making this as a gift for my sister - you can read all about it here). 

I'd hoped to get them all stitched by the end of the evening, but with a few inches left to sew I started getting tired and thought I'd better put the project down before I stitched the wrong thing or stabbed myself with a needle! Just a few more stitches then I can start on the actual quilting! (exciting!! scary!!!)

Then I was back on my knitting obsession on day 55, but not loving knitting with the yellow yarn as much as the orange. So, I decided to mix things up a bit and alternate between knitting squares in three of the remaining colours: green, pink and yellow. These shades look so great together - so bright and zingy, like yummy boiled sweets (hard candies).

P.S. Here's a bonus photo from last week: a smart-looking pencil I was using in some step-by-step tutorial photos, with the actual (short, scruffy) pencil I'd actually used to make the project :)

More Awesome Colouring Books for Grown-Ups

Colouring books are not just for kids anymore!

Back in the summer I read an article about how colouring books were becoming popular as "art therapy", reducing stress through the magic of colouring in. I found lots of cool colouring books, treated myself to some (and some pens and pencils to colour them in, of course!) and have since enjoyed many relaxing hours of colouring-in.

I have found that colouring is a great way to let your brain unwind at the end of a long stressful day (or a busy week rushing to meet deadlines), and a wonderful way to pass the time when you're not feeling well (just add a DVD box set, lots of cups of tea, some blankets and a cat!). Switching off and focusing on slowly filling in the lines with colour can be very absorbing and almost meditative.

There are so many interesting-looking colouring books out there my wish list is getting rather long and I am definitely not going to run out of things to colour any time soon. So I thought I'd share some of the titles I've spotted over the past few months, in case you guys fancy doing a bit of colouring yourselves :)

(Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links - click on the text links to find the titles on Amazon UK and the images to find them on Amazon USA, where available)

First up, Millie Marotta's Animal Kingdom which I spotted at the Knitting & Stitching show last month (there was much ooohing). This book is so lovely and filled with all kinds of different animals to colour and embellish.

When looking for fun colouring books I was delighted to discover "Just Add Color", a new range of books featuring designers/illustrators like Lisa Congdon & Jenn Ski whose work I adore. The Just Add Color series includes Botanicals, Geometric Patterns, Mid-Century Modern Mania, Mid-Century Modern Patterns among other titles.

Buying colouring books featuring the work of designers/illustrators you love is a great way to enjoy their designs without having to make space in your home for another print or mug, etc. And although this is a post about colouring books for grown-ups, they're also a nice way to share great design with your kids.

These large colouring books featuring the work of Alexander Girard and Patrick Hruby are perfect for sharing with your kids as the larger scale illustrations are great for colouring in with crayons and each page is perforated so you can tear it out and display it once you've coloured it in - or share the book between a group of people who want to colour together.

I've bought the Patrick Hruby book, along with one of the Charley Harper colouring books I mentioned in my previous colouring-book post (which is from the same range). They are pretty gorgeous, and I love how the back covers show you the original colourways of the featured designs so you can follow those if you want to or choose your own colours.

Talking of Charley Harper... 

US-based publisher Pomegranate make a fab range of stuff featuring his designs (I've bought lots of their puzzles for my mum over the past few Christmases!) .... which includes notecards to colour. 

I also spotted some Frank Lloyd Wright colouring cards - I love the idea of colouring those stylish, modernist houses with bright crayons! Again, these would be a great way to share design you love with your kids but they'd also be a fab gift to send to a friend as they can use the crayons included to start colouring straight away. You can see the full range here.

Pomegranate also have a fantastic range of colouring books, which includes Railroad Posters of Scotland, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, William Morris , Kew Gardens: Art for London Transport... and many more titles.

I've bought their William Morris colouring book & it's great, lots of classic patterns to colour (one per sheet of paper) with the orginal colourways included for reference. I've not coloured any yet but I'm quite looking forward to seeing how different the patterns look in bright modern colour combos.

On my colouring-book browsing "travels" I've spotted a few more colouring cards - postcards of a couple of the titles I featured in the previous round-up. I love the idea of colouring cards as they're useful as well as fun to colour, as you can send a bit of happy post to a friend when you've finished colouring.

You can buy a book of Secret Garden Postcards featuring designs from the book of the same name...

... or a pack of Tattoo postcards (based on this book), which also includes a couple of sheets of tattoo stickers (yay for stickers!).

I am a total scaredy-cat when it comes to stuff like piercings and tattoos but I love the idea of tattoos to colour in. Similarly, although I don't own any trainers/sneakers and know next to nothing about the famous brands and designs I love the look of the sneaker colouring book. This takes you through the history of trainer/sneaker design, with 100 different designs to colour. 

 

Also awesome-looking: these funny colouring books by Theo Nicole Lorenze. You can choose between Unicorns are Jerks: a coloring book exposing the cold, hard, sparkly truth or Dinosaurs with Jobs. I do love dinosaurs but I'm leaning towards the unicorn book, simply because the idea of dirtbag unicorns makes me laugh.

The unicorn colouring book would also make a fun gift paired with some glitter pens! 

In my original blog post about colouring books I featured lots of French colouring books, as France is where the colouring-to-reduce-stress trend kicked off.

Looking at some of the newly released French titles I spotted this wonderful-looking Spirograph-style activity book: Art-thérapie: rosaces: Créations anti-stress. Colouring and Spirograph patterns sounds like an excellent combo to me! (I spent soooo many happy hours making those patterns as a kid).  

I've also spotted lots of English reprints of the French books, including Art Therapy: Stained Glass. I bought the French version of this book and it is completely wonderful!

All the stained glass windows featured are real windows from churches, cathedrals and museum collections around the world. They date from the 1200s to the 1900s so there's a wide variety of styles to colour and the French version (and I'm guessing the English one would be the same?) has an index at the back telling you where each window is from. 

The only problem with this book is that I'm a teeny bit scared to actually colour it in because it's all so beautiful (#colouringbookproblems).

If you're a stained glass fan you will also love the Stained Glass Coloring Book range from Dover. I mentioned Dover's colouring books briefly in my last post, but they have a HUGE range of titles covering almost every interest you might have. I especially love their Stained Glass range which has pictures printed on transparent paper so you can stick the pages up in your windows when you've finished colouring.

I'm planning on buying this William Morris collection which features 16 of his designs for stained glass, wallpaper and textiles.

Also pretty high up my colouring wish list is this fab book of designs by printmaker Edward Bawden. His distinctive lino prints should make this a really interesting book to colour!

Most of the designer/illustrator books featured in this post are colouring books that a publisher has put together of someone's work, adapting their prints, paintings, illustrations, etc to the demands of the colouring book form.

This Andy Warhol colouring book is different: it's an actual colouring book he designed as a Christmas gift for his clients kids when he was working as an illustrator in the early 60s. Fun!

I have to admit that though I love colouring books with gorgeous illustrations, my very favourite thing to colour is geometric and/or repeating patterns.

I find them extra relaxing as you can follow the repeat, so there are fewer decisions for my sleepy brain to make, and super low-pressure as there's no beautiful drawing to "ruin" if you colour it in badly / use terrible colour choices (I know, I know, I have some colouring issues, shhh).

I especially adored Galt's Pattern Pads when I was a kid - I found an old one in a box recently and have been having a ton of fun colouring the remaining pages. They sadly don't seem to make the pads anymore but there is a Galt Pattern Book available and it seems to be in the same style as before, with little practice sections so you can try out your colours before starting the main pattern.

 

I love the look of the repeat patterns in Angie Grace's range of pattern books. There are about a dozen different books available, with titles like Snazzy, Flowers, Nifty, Spiffy, Ink Doilies, Peppy, and Doodles. Don't they look pretty?

 

This geometric series from Altair Design also looks like a lot of fun. There's a range of pattern pads and postcards to colour-in too.

Last time I wrote about colouring books, someone recommended the Pictura range which I was delighted to discover as they're quite enchanting. These books are not really books at all but fold-out pictures featuring wonderful illustrations to colour.

There's a whole range of subjects and illustrations styles to choose from, including A Stroll in London, Enchanted Forest, Draconis, A Hedgerow Year, Traffic, Midsummer Night's Dream, A Medieval Town and (my favourite) Aurelian. 

It's well worth a visit to Pictura's website to see the full illustrations - click here to see Aurelian in all its glory. I would for sure be a bit scared colouring that in but it would be a lovely long project to get absorbed in and hugely satisfying to finish and display on your wall.

Pictura also sell books of posters to colour, under the title Pictura Prints, including Botanicals and Travelogue.

Last but by no means least... a burst of super cuteness found on Etsy!

 

The Colour Your Heart Out colouring books by Kristy Boisvert each contain 12 illustrations of adorable woodland animals, topped with sweet, positive sentiments like "This is your moment", "You are loved", "We'll get through this together" and "You'll make mistakes and that's ok".

These are definitely suitable for kids but they'd also be great to colour at the end of a stressful day and would make a lovely gift for a friend going through a tough time. You can also Colour Your Canadian Heart Out, buy the original set of illustrations as printable colouring pages or buy a set of cute greetings cards to colour and send to your friends.

Want even more colouring books after all those? Check out my previous post!

Have you discovered the joys of colouring in? Have you tried any of the books I've featured, or bought any other nice colouring books that you'd like to recommend? Let me know in the comments :)