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Press Out and Colour: Christmas Decorations, is published and very kindly sent to me to review by Nosy Crow. This book is aimed at children but actually, it’s ideal for anyone who’s young at heart and I really enjoyed colouring my Christmas Decorations (so much so that I did two) ready for the review. This book is hardback, a little larger than A5 and spiral-bound. The covers are dark green and the spine is red with gold foiling on the spine and the front cover. On the inside covers are white line drawings on a red background of Christmas decorations hung on tree branches. The book contains 20 different shapes of Christmas decorations, some of which are flat and some of which slot together to make a 3D shape all of which you can press out (before or after colouring), colour and assemble and then hang around the house or on your Christmas tree. The pages are made of very thick card/hardboard and are covered in gold foil throughout. The decorations are white with gold line-drawn patterns all over them which you colour within and these catch the light beautifully when you hang up your assembled decoration and it moves against the light. The decorations are printed double-sided with the same design on both sides so that you can colour it identically and have a 3D decoration at the end. The cuts around the little sections that need to be removed in order to slot the shapes together and hang them up are really well cut so that you can push the unneeded bits out with your fingers or something a bit pointier if needed. The pieces slot together really well and are very sturdy and will remain so if you don’t disassemble and reassemble them a lot so they won’t fall apart by accident and they shouldn’t need gluing. Each decoration has small holes that you can tie some thread through (the holes are a little small for string) and you could either hang the decorations separately or together, or even on your Christmas tree. You may not want to keep these Christmas decorations up all year round and if that’s the case then they can be disassembled and the pieces can be popped back into the guides in the book for safekeeping. The guides can also be used as stencils to draw within (or you could draw around the pieces but be careful to only use pencil so you don’t accidentally damage your finished piece) so that you can create lots more decorations than the original 20 you’re getting. Simply draw within the slots and holes on the pieces to make sure it’ll slot together just like the original or, if you’re using thinner card, make them thinner and adjust with scissors as you go if it’s a bit too tight a fit! The decorations are in a number of different sizes and are a mixture of 3D and flat with 11 being 3D once slotted together and 9 being flat. Once they’re all coloured, assembled, and displayed together they’ll look fabulous and you’ll be all set for the arrival of Christmas and all its festivities. They are in a variety of shapes including a candy cane, Christmas pudding, nutcracker, heart, bauble, Russian dolls in three sizes, a donkey, snowflake, Christmas tree and circular.
As mentioned before, the card is very thick hardboard and therefore you can use whatever mediums you fancy. I used alcohol markers on mine as they’re much more fade-resistant than water-based pens and they didn’t shadow at all. The patterns are quite detailed so you may struggle with pencils and little people almost certainly would so I’d stick to pens for this (do put down some protective stuff on the table if letting your child loose with Sharpies or it may not just be the decoration that gets permanently subjected to their creative flair). These Christmas decorations would make a perfect family project, you could do one each or even do a piece each and see what you come out with, I’m sure you could create some really wonderful decorations that would be treasured for years to come! It would be a lovely activity to do for or with your children and once you’ve completed all 20, or just a few, you could hang them around the house or on your Christmas tree in pride of place so that you and they are constantly reminded of the fun you had creating them together. The hardboard is really durable and will hold up to a fair bit of bashing, scrubbing, and over-colouring (children can get a little over-enthusiastic with pens sometimes) so these decorations would be ideal for children of almost any age, if they can hold a pen and colour, they can colour these decorations! The parts are all fairly big so it’s advised on the book that you don’t give it to a child under the age of 36 months but above that you’ll be good to go!
In terms of mental health, what could be better than an activity that you can share with your children? The process of colouring them together will be sure to lift your mood and if you’re ever having a bad day or feeling anxious, go and check out your handiwork and marvel at the gorgeous colours and look forward to the presents and food you’ll be sharing with each other soon! The intricacy and detail level is surprisingly high for a book that’s aimed at children but the gold lines can either be coloured within by adults, or over by children, it really won’t matter either way and you’ll get some very unique Christmas decorations regardless of the way you colour them. Each decoration has Christmas-themed imagery on it including presents, snowflakes and festive birds so none of it needs to be coloured realistically and you could either theme them all with a Christmassy palette or just let loose with ALL the colours! Each decoration is either made of one or two pieces so some need no assembly and those that do just require slotting one piece into the other so they’re really easy to assemble and they don’t take hours and hours to colour, even if you do colour each section separately (like I did) so they’re a great quick project to create something beautiful and displayable for your home!
I would highly recommend this book to those with children, or the young at heart. These Christmas decorations are super cute and great fun to colour and they look even better once assembled, a fully coloured set will look wonderful hung up in a room or adorning a Christmas tree and they’ll be sure to delight your child and brighten up the darkest of days be those due to weather or mental health. Get colouring yourself some fabulous decorations and get into the Christmas spirit early this year!
If you’d like to purchase a copy it’s available to pre-order here:
Amazon UK – Press Out and Colour: Christmas Decorations
Book Depository Worldwide – https://www.bookdepository.com/Press-Out-and-Colour-Christmas-Decorations-Kate-McLelland/9780857639684/?a_aid=colouringitmom
You can see my silent video flick-through of the whole book here.
The decorations below were coloured using Bic Marking Alcohol Markers.
In The Midst Of Madness 