Eye Candy - Crafty Colours

Hello again! I've so missed our time together...

I have so many things to tell you...

So many ideas to share...

But before we leap back in to all things cute, clever and crafty...

Feast your eyes on a few things full of colour!

There's just something oh-so-satisfying about craft supplies (or anything at all really) arranged by colour, don't you think?

Do you have any eye candy to share? Blog posts, instagram shots, ??? - leave them in the comments. My eyes are hungry too!

Five Ways To Upcycle Colouring Books

I'm loving the current adult colouring trend... but once I'm done a page, I kinda think to myself now what? I'm not likely to display my colouring on the fridge and leaving it to gather dust on a shelf seems a bit of a waste, so I decide to dream up some different ways to use completed colouring pages for even more creative enjoyment.

Here are five ways to transform your finished colouring books:

Upcycled Wrapping

Make Wrapping Paper 
Have a colouring book with thinner pages? Use your completed pages to wrap small gifts - one of a kind gift wrap in your favourite colours. Top with twine or ribbon or keep the upcycling trend going and use up scraps of yarn or fabric in place of ribbon.

Make Gift Tags 
This is actually the project that got me thinking about crafting with colouring books. I was wrapping up some books to send out to giveaway winners and friends and wanted to add a finishing touch that tied into the books. Eureka - tags made from colouring book pages!

When making tags, try to use to use thicker pages and avoid ones where markers have bled through. Simply cut your page into a standard tag shape and punch a hole. Easy!

Upcycled Celebrations

Make Confetti
Use paper punches to create colouring book confetti. Sprinkle your custom confetti on party tables, add to gifts or slide into outgoing snail mail.



Everyone loves confetti! (Though no one likes cleaning it up...)

Make A Garland
Punch circles or other desired shapes from the colouring book page. Cut a length of twine or string. Apply glue to the blank sides of two circles and stick together with the twine sandwiched in between. Continue until your garland is as long as you'd like.

Upcycled Art

Make Collages
Create cut paper collages using colouring book pages. Cut a variety of shapes out of your finished pages and assemble into new pictures. Try mixing pages from different books together or add drawn or painted elements.



In case you're wondering, here are the colouring books I used in these projects. Joyful Designs by Joy Ting - perfect when you're in the mood for florals. Colour Me Calm by Lacy Mucklow and Angela Porter - full of mandalas and other relaxing scenes. Carnival by Sarah Walsh - quirky scenes and a festive fun!

Happy crafting!

Would you try any of these projects to give your finished colouring pages a new life? 
Do you have any other project ideas using colouring books?

Carnival of Colour - Just Add Color Review & Giveaway

We've already been over how 2015 is the Year Of The Colouring Book (well, at least around here), so when a box of beautiful books to colour all over arrived, I was pretty happy. 

The Just Add Color series of colouring books features art by popular contemporary artists and illustrators like Sarah Walsh and Lisa Congdon. The black and white line drawings invite you to lose yourself to each page, adding your favourite colour combinations.

I gravitated to the Carnival book pretty quickly - it helped that it was right around Carnaval time when it arrived and, since we were very firmly in snowy Canada and not in sultry Brazil, a book filled with costumes and spectacle and dancing girls was the perfect way to add some colour to a very grey February!

I've actually loved Sarah Walsh's work for a long time. Her quirky portraits are a favourite of mine, so a whole book filled with her illustrations is a real treat. I especially enjoy colouring the full page faces - they remind me of those beauty shop Barbies where you get to do their makeup... only way better because these beauties are wearing horns and jaguar masks and floral crowns.

There's a really nice variety of images within the Carnival book. You get to travel to festivals all around the world - Brazil, Italy, India, China - colouring all the way.

The quality of paper in the new adult* colouring books is so nice - thick so that colour doesn't bleed through, but single-sided so that even if it does, your pages aren't ruined. And, if you love what you've coloured, the perforated pages make it easy to remove and display your finished images.

*Okay, okay - I'm the only one calling them that - they really are for colour lovers of any age. But adults all over are rediscovering their love for colouring and realizing how relaxing it is, so it's fantastic to have books geared towards this demographic.

My favourite thing about the Just Add Color series is that it allows you to customize the work of artists like Walsh and Congdon. If, like me, you've admired their work from afar via the internet, these books allow you to cozy up to their illustrations and add your own style. Your very own collaboration!

Just look at that pretty pile! Of course, I couldn't keep ALL these lovely books to myself. Well, I could... but I'm not going to. So, how about a little colour-licious giveaway?

Enter to win a set of two Just Add Color colouring books courtesy of Quarto Books / Rockport Publishing plus pencil crayons (or coloured pencils, if you prefer) so you can start colouring right away! Open to Canada / US entrants.

Just Add Color Giveaway

Giveaway ends Friday, April 10th at noon.
Good luck!

Books provided by Quarto Books US. All opinions and images my own.

Pinning For Spring (And Shopify!)

I won't hesitate to admit that I've been pining for Spring since about mid-February. While the days are definitely getting longer there's still a blanket of (dirty) snow outside my window and I'm more than ready for a little more colour!

Needless to say, I was pretty excited when Shopify asked me to come pin all things Spring for them this month...

Hello fresh colour! 
Hello bunny rabbits! 
Hello a really great excuse to discover new-to-me shops! 

Follow along to see what I'm pinning, drink in all the Springtime colours and discover new-to-you shops. Oh, and enter our giveaway! There are two $50 Omiyage craft packs full of colourful crafty goodness to be won. All the details here.

Happy pinning! (And hopefully less pining).