Kim Hughes
Winter break is such a wonderful time to sit down and create art with your adorable children.
Coloring books and crayons are a low-cost bundle of fun, and I’d like to show you a couple of ways to use them to their utmost potential.
Even if you don’t have school-aged children/grandchildren, you can still enjoy this timeless craft and share your little works of art with your loved ones. Color and embrace your inner child!
You can cut out images from your coloring book pages and use them as accents. Many times words are included and can be used as a sentiment.
This is a wonderful, quick gift idea. Mat your page and create a door hanger for a child’s room. Or create a “welcome sign” for someone’s front door.
Here’s some coloring book tips:
- It’s best to use clear glue when adhering coloring book pages to your project (I used Ranger’s Glossy Accents). You need to be careful that the adhesive doesn’t show through since the paper is so delicately thin.
- When cutting out images from coloring book pages, be careful and take your time. Most scissors will glide through the paper with so much ease that you could easily ruin your image. It’s like cutting tissue paper, so cut with caution.
- There are many free coloring pages available on the web. Just do a simple search for “free coloring book pages” and you can print them out as many times as you wish. You can also print them onto patterned paper and paper piece.
- You can scan a coloring book page and print it so that it won’t have the other image on the opposite side. Plus, you can print onto a heavy weight paper for easier cutting.
- Frame your child’s art and give it as a gift.
- Coloring Pages from Crayola is where you will find fun activities, as well as coloring pages that you can enjoy with your kids.
- Use a light box and trace the image for a hand-drawn look.
- Print a bunch of coloring book images, bind the pages together and give them as a gift along with some crayons and markers.
Here’s some ideas of what you can do to jazz up your coloring book images:
- use paint, colored pencils, markers or crayons
- add glitter
- stamp a pattern on them and then cut them out
- pop them up to add dimension
- apply ribbon stiffener to the paper and make barrettes or magnets
- add brads to the center of paper flowers
Enjoy the magic of coloring with your kids. I’m sure that it will be a rewarding experience for all of you!
Happy Holidays!
Kim Hughes,
Paper Crafts Go-to Gal
P.S. As my gift to you, I’d like to give away three of my Holiday Cards & More, Volume 4 designs to one lucky winner! Leave a comment telling me your favorite color in the crayon box. All comments must be received by midnight (MDT) on Saturday, Dec. 26.
One lucky winner will take home all three of these cards!
My favorite color is red!!! I love the santa suit card, maybe cuz it’s red??!!
my fave is blue! my daughter loves to color!
I love celadine, a whitened pale green from the pottery of ancient China. It’s a color that inspires me and makes me feel calm.
My favorite color in the Crayon box – Sky Blue (same color as my eyes!)
Always loved the purple shades.
My box is an oldie but still loaded with goodies! Yellow-Green is my fav today
Oh, my favorite is sea green! I especially loved to color with it and sky blue and thistle! For a special touch, I would throw in a little carnation! It’s so funny to think that I remember all of those names, especially now that I think of color in terms of stamp pad names!
My favorite color is any shade of pink or aqua. I love both!
Very cute! My fave. color is orange!
Cerulean is one of my favorite shades of my favorite color- blue! I’ve also benn partial to turquoise since I was 7 or 8. I love your ideas for using coloring book pages. I used coloring book figures (an owl) for embellishments for some of the first scrapbooks I made, 30 years ago. That was before there were printed papers and 3-D stickers and die-cuts. Every book had a theme, every picture was matted and everyone identified in the pictures.
I love ALL colors but if I had to pick just one it would probably be a willow green – soft spring green with a dash of yellow. Thats what is in my family room. Thanks for the chance to win a prize!
Paige
What clever ideas, I never thought of coloring book images!
My favorite color was always GREEN! Everything was green–the grass, the sky, the horse, EVERYTHING, lol!
I love orange—macaroni and cheese is pretty…
And I love greens—really any green. It’s been my favorite color since I was a child. Many moons ago…
Woops, I gave my answer (greens, above) on my daughter’s account. I forgot to change it to mine after she answered. Sorry. So greens are my favorite color.
Ok, now I many be the only person to pick this color, but then I’m probably the only man who is crafty! I love browns. Actually, I love chocolate brown, beige, and any other colors that are related to browns.
A teal blue would be my favourite colour.
what beautiful cards! my favorite color in the crayola box is brick red. it is so deep and rich, it’s what i grab for first when coloring something in.
My favourite colour is blue… I love to colour in outline stamped images. Thanks for the great ideas. Love the look of the white whimsical flowers on the green background.
My favorite color is as indesicive as I am..periwinkle. It doesn’t know if it wants to be blue or purple but it does know it wants to be beautiful.
:-}
My favorite color in the crayola box is red. I would draw flowers all the time when I was little and I always colored them red.
because my 4 yo is so descriptive about it- dandelion yellow. Normally I would say cornflower blue
Merry Christmas!
The brightest yellow I can find. It always makes me smile.
I love colour, lots of colour…no pastels for me! My absolute favourite is burnt orange.
I love lilac
My favorite color is green, it’s sometimes hard to combine, but I love the serenity of it.
burnt sienna is my fav!!
My favorite crayon color is Caribbean Green although i really love Pink Flamingo on a color-me-crazy day!
I love pink any any shades of pink.. Boy this brings back such fun memories when I would ask Santa for the big box of 64 crayolas with the sharpener.. I can almost smell the “new crayon smell”. Love it.
That is a funny question. For some reason the only color I ever remember is burnt Sienna. I even named my dog Sienna. Guess that would be my favorite.
lisa a.
I love to color with my grandchildren. In fact, have always loved to color with crayons. My favorite color is red!
I would have to say any shade of blue – especially periwinkle or teal! Thanks for the chance to win and Merry Christmas to everyone!
My favorite Crayon color is Robin Egg Blue!
I don’t have any crayons to give you a specific color, but it would have to be any shade of red.
Just love coloring…in that aspect I never grew up
) Thanks for the chance to win!
Red, for sure. My favorite color, period.
I love teal…..
When I was little (about 3) I loved to color. But I really loved to eat them!! I have a picture ofme sitting on my Dad’s lap with a crayon in my hand heading to my mouth. I laugh everytime I see that photo. My Mom said my favorite color to eat was black!! Of course!!!
I still love to color. My youngest GD and I color together all the time. I still love black btw!
Hi Kim! Awww…I love that door hanger. It is too cute! My favorite color in the crayon box has to be Husker red. Why do we call it Husker red, you ask? Because we are huge Nebraska Cornhusker football fans. There is no such thing as just red here in the state of Nebraska…lol. Thanks for the inspiration!
Can I pick all the colors? I think I love blue the most… in all shades… Fabulous coloring! Love the cute flowers with the red brads! TFS!
Midnight blue! I think I need to get some of the glossy accents glue!
My favorite color is any shade of pink!!
cerulean, blue, light blue, dark blue, I just can’t pick one.
Merry Christmas!
This is a hard one- I love them all but pine green appeals to me tonight- as well as tropical rain forest!
All shades of red light up my world. What a cute project to make with the little ones. Have a very Merry Christmas!
Red would be my color of choice. Merry Christmas
It’s gotta be RED!
When I was in preschool, I had to color in the state flag of Texas. I found the prettiest color of blue to use and colored my flag. Unfortunately, the teacher did not agree with my choice of navy blue and I had to stay in correct my error. I still think that navy blue is the prettiest. Thanks for the chance to win and hope that you have a very Merry Christmas!
Great idea! My favorite color is, anything PINK!
Purple – as in royal, true purple – is my most favorite color in the box!!