Laminated colouring pages

Our daughter loves to draw on things purely so she can clean it off, which is really frustrating her when it comes to colouring pages. Not to mention her cloth of choice is a wet wipe which just doesn't end well for the paper.

My solution was pulling out the laminator and ripping some pages out of her colouring books so she can draw and clean to her hearts content! And to make it even easier, the Bluey one from Crayola is all loose pages already.

I just love a super quick and easy project, especially when there isn't a mess to clean up. Added bonus is that the laminator is very interesting to a two year old!

Calico Shopping Bags

Every now and then I see reusable bags for sale at the shops that have a plain print on them which is perfect to colour in with Sharpies! I've collected 3 of them to colour in now and have finally finished the first one I bought. I've even done a quick hand wash and the colour stuck! You do have to be careful as sometimes the colour bleeds, it's only really noticeable when using light colours next to dark ones.

Colour In Cushion

I had forgotten about this fabric I bought from Ikea many years ago and decided to turn it into cushions for all the kids birthdays this year. Since I just finished the last one I thought I'd better get a photo before I wrapped it. So far the two kids who have received their cushions have loved them!

And now that it is done, I think I need one for myself as well. We just bought a daybed for our lounge room so I'm in need of lots of comfy, new cushions, for now we just have a whole lot of pillows with pillowcases on them. One by one those pillows will get turned into cushions - if you can't find a cushion insert just grab a pillow by the short end, one hand on each corner and flick it so all the stuffing compacts at the other end. A standard cheap polyester filled pillow will compact enough to fit into a cushion cover.

Cards from Colouring Books

Does anyone else have a stack of adult colouring books that you haven't touched for awhile? As a kid I loved colouring in, but as an adult I find it a waste to colour in without a purpose for the finished pages. So since I love stamping and colouring in cards I figured why not colour in my books and stick them on blank cards.

I coloured these in using alcohol ink pens - they don't show up the darker sections where the ink overlaps like sharpies and markers do. For the bigger ones I cut to size first then used double sided tape. The smaller tags are blank business cards. I covered the card with a glue stick, pressed onto the paper and once dry I trimmed it with scissors to match the card.

Stamped gift tags

Isn't it great that there are so many beautiful colouring books for adults now? I have always preferred to colour in rather than create the actual drawing. Seeing them everywhere made me decide it was a great time to pull out my stamps and restock my supply of gift tags.

This time I chose to use my watercolour pencils for colouring in, once it is fully dry I use a gel ink pen to redo the outline

Because I used recycled cards I dipped the pencils directly into the water so the colour would show up better. You can blend with a wet paintbrush but I still tend to use a wet pencil for blending.