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The Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes: Unicorns and Rainbows are published and very kindly sent to me to review by Nosy Crow Publishing. These cards will be published on the 7th of September and are the sixth set in the series, my reviews of the previous titles can be found here: Nature, Flowers and Butterflies, Summertime, Christmas, A Year of Celebrations! This book, as with all of the others in the series, is fantastically well made and everything has been thought of, matched and produced with quality in mind. The book itself is large at 28cm square, it’s paperback with a flexible card cover with blue foiling lettering and detail. Inside the front cover are instructions detailing how to fold the envelopes for the cards. Following this are pages of colourable cards with two on each page connected by tabs on perforated pages which are very easy to remove from the book with no issues or bending and a thin strip that the perforation is attached to that you can cut off with scissors to neaten up the card edges. There are 24 cards, each with a unique design, and all 4 sides of the cards have illustrations on that you can colour including a “Coloured For You By…” section on the back, they measure 13.5cm square when folded. Following the card pages are 24 unique envelope designs that match the cards perfectly and are printed in the same order as the cards so it’s very easy to match up the paired cards and envelopes together. The envelopes have illustrations on the front, each of the four flaps, and the whole of the back of the page which makes up the inside of the envelope has a repeating design on it that can be coloured if you wish. The folding instructions are very clear and easy to follow and the pre-scored lines on the cards and envelopes allow for a perfect fold every time. On the very last page of the book are 24 circular stickers with matching designs to seal the envelopes with. One small gripe I have is that these stickers are arranged in a random order and it’s not clear which card many of them are designed for, with many being suitable for a number of cards which just irks the perfectionist in me.
The card itself is bright white, medium thickness and lightly textured. I experienced absolutely no bleeding and very minimal shadowing when using water-based pens; alcohol markers will bleed through. Pencils would be ideal for these cards if you’re wanting more subtle colours, or wanting to blend and shade. The envelopes are printed onto bright white, thick paper which I didn’t experience any bleed through of water-based pens on but did get the lightest of shadowing when I coloured too slowly and the ink saturated the paper a bit much so do please be careful if you’re wanting the inside of your envelopes to remain pristine for colouring too. There isn’t a huge amount of space for an address on a few of the envelopes but really, they’re too pretty to send as they are in the post as you risk them getting damaged so when sending them to friends and family I always pop them inside a normal envelope to keep them safe and damage-free, it also means you don’t have to stick a postage stamp over some of the design.
The designs themselves are utterly charming and absolutely adorable. This set is a great combination of unicorns and other cute creatures as well as lots of rainbows, one thing to note that has slightly bothered me is that lots of the cards contain rainbows but just one of them has the full seven strands, all of the others have up to 6, usually 4 or 5 which is a bit difficult to colour properly, especially with pens, it’s irritated me ever since I was a child that so many rainbow drawings don’t have the full 7 strands, this may well not bother others though! The illustrations include all sorts of things from lots of unicorns and rainbows to cupcakes, clouds, flowers, stars, deer, swans, cats, dogs, and even a peacock, the cards in this set feel more samey than the previous sets have and a few of them I had to look at twice to check they weren’t the same but there definitely aren’t any duplicates, just some similar ones. All aspects of the cards and envelopes are hand drawn and while some are very similarly arranged, they are all unique. The cards feel luxurious and are extremely well made, I couldn’t ask for more from a set of colouring cards, and with an RRP of just £9.99, with previous sets often being found for under £5, they’re an absolute bargain and I’m sure I’ll be purchasing set after set of these, I’m a huge unicorn fan!
In terms of mental health, I personally found these cards absolutely fantastic, they’re really distracting, and very helpful for calming you down and helping you to zone out and focus on a manageable project which you can colour in sections or larger bits when you’re feeling better. The line thickness is thin throughout and the images are mostly very intricate and detailed with a few larger spaces on animal bodies but predominantly each image consists of lots of teeny tiny elements so these cards are definitely for those of you with pretty good vision and fine motor control. The image content is really natural and has a childlike quality which adds so much charm and character to the illustrations and is sure to brighten the darkest of days and spread a little cheer, no matter how low you’re feeling. The cards take a surprisingly long time to colour so you get hours and hours of enjoyment from this book and you can really spread the colouring love by posting them coloured or even uncoloured to family and friends.
I would highly recommend these cards to anyone looking for greetings cards to colour and send, or anyone wanting to persuade their friends or family into starting colouring, these cards are so charming that the recipient surely can’t help but start colouring them if they’re sent uncoloured! You’ll need pretty good vision and fine motor control to enjoy them but if you have those then you’re sure to love these cards, because apart from the address section being a little small, they’re genuinely perfect! Unicorn lovers will adore this book, either as the recipient of a card or of the whole book, they’re fabulous!
If you’d like to purchase a set, they’re available here:
Amazon UK – The Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes: Unicorns and Rainbows
Book Depository Worldwide – goo.gl/UZUsQv
The card and envelope below were coloured using Stabilo 88 Fineliners and Stabilo 68 Fibre-tips.
are published and very kindly sent to me to review by Nosy Crow Publishing. These cards will be published on the 2nd of June and are the third of three sets, with one more publishing later in the year with a Christmas theme (I already can’t wait for these)! This book is fantastically well made and everything has been thought of, matched and produced with quality in mind. The book itself is large at 28cm square, it’s paperback with a flexible card cover with copper foiling lettering and detail. Inside the front cover are instructions detailing how to fold the envelopes for the cards. Following this are pages of colourable cards with two on each page connected by tabs on perforated pages which are very easy to remove from the book with no issues or bending and a thin strip that the perforation is attached to that you can cut off with scissors to neaten up the card edges. There are 24 cards, each with a unique design, and all 4 sides of the cards have illustrations on that you can colour including a “Coloured For You By…” section on the back, they measure 13.5cm square when folded. Following the card pages are 24 unique envelope designs that match the cards perfectly and are printed in the same order as the cards so it’s very easy to match up the paired cards and envelopes together. The envelopes have illustrations on the front, each of the four flaps, and the whole of the back of the page which makes up the inside of the envelope has a repeating design on it that can be coloured if you wish. The folding instructions are very clear and easy to follow and the pre-scored lines on the cards and envelopes allow for a perfect fold every time. On the very last page of the book are 24 circular stickers with matching designs to seal the envelopes with. One small gripe I have is that these stickers are arranged in a random order and it’s not clear which card many of them are designed for, with many being suitable for a number of cards which just irks the perfectionist in me.
are published and very kindly sent to me to review by Nosy Crow Publishing. These cards are the second of two sets, with two more publishing later in the year with a Summer and Christmas theme (I already can’t wait for these)! This book is fantastically well made and everything has been thought of, matched and produced with quality in mind. The book itself is large at 28cm square, it’s paperback with a flexible card cover with blue foiling lettering and detail. Inside the front cover are instructions detailing how to fold the envelopes for the cards. Following this are pages of colourable cards with two on each page connected by tabs on perforated pages which are very easy to remove from the book with no issues or bending and a thin strip that the perforation is attached to that you can cut off with scissors to neaten up the card edges. There are 24 cards, each with a unique design, and all 4 sides of the cards have illustrations on that you can colour including a “Coloured For You By…” section on the back, they measure 13.5cm square when folded. Following the card pages are 24 unique envelope designs that match the cards perfectly and are printed in the same order as the cards so it’s very easy to match up the paired cards and envelopes together. The envelopes have illustrations on the front, each of the four flaps, and the whole of the back of the page which makes up the inside of the envelope has a repeating design on it that can be coloured if you wish. The folding instructions are very clear and easy to follow and the pre-scored lines on the cards and envelopes allow for a perfect fold every time. On the very last page of the book are 24 circular stickers with matching designs to seal the envelopes with. One small gripe I have is that these stickers are arranged in a random order and it’s not clear which card many of them are designed for, with many being suitable for a number of cards which just irks the perfectionist in me.
is published and kindly sent to me to review by Laurence King Publishing. This beautiful set of notecards is housed in a sturdy, thick card box which is cream with gold foil accents. It’s fully colourable and shows on the back what images are on the 12 cards (all are pictured below). The box has a little cardboard platform inside with a beautiful black and white leaf print which the cards and envelopes are sat on top of so that they don’t move around in the box. The 12 cards each contain a different scaled down image from Johanna Basford’s original Enchanted Forest colouring book and this means that the images are very intricate and detailed. The cards themselves are made from cream card which is a similar colour to the paper in her first two books, and the postcards so they match well as a set for those of you who like to collect things. The card is a medium weight, very similar to other colouring cards that are currently on the market, and it doesn’t bleed through or shadow at all with water-based pens however, I did have a very small issue with the ink occasionally spreading slightly sideways and going over the lines, this was a very minor issue but one that’s worth mentioning. The card is very lightly textured so would work fine with pencils though you won’t be able to build up lots of layers so you’ll have to blend carefully. The cards are 12.5 x 16.5cm so they’re between A6 and A5 size, and 9 of the cards have centralised circular or individual images and 3 have full page images which reach the edges of the cards, obviously there is no spine so there’s no issue in reaching all of these parts. The images are of course beautifully cohesive and are exact scaled down copies of the images in the books and a fairly good selection is included from the compass to the leaf boat, the dragonfly to the castle, the gate to the circular framed owl and squirrel. Almost all of the images on these cards were featured in the set of 20 postcards which you can read my review of 
are published and were kindly sent to me for review by Michael O’Mara Books. I’ve had so many people asking me about colourable greetings cards and until now I hadn’t seen any but the search is over and these are well worth the wait! The set comes in a cardboard case which is fairly sturdy but isn’t magnetised so it does move freely (be aware of this if you’re taking them with you in a bag) and it opens out flat to reveal a sturdy cardboard slot on the left which the envelopes are slotted into and on the right the cards are in a stack with their backs face up and they’re lightly glued on the left (the open edge of the cards) with a similar binding to postcard books so that they can be carefully removed. I would suggest removing them in order rather than doing what I did and picking my favourite one which happened to be in the middle and was a struggle (but still doable) to remove. You’ll want to remove the cards before colouring because the kit is quite difficult to manhandle around when you’re colouring if it’s still attached. The kit contains 20 identical envelopes which are a natural cream colour with a small pink design in the bottom left and on the flap at the back. The cards come in 10 designs, 2 of each and they are all different colours so each one will look different even though the designs are in pairs. As with all of the Art Therapy range, these notecards each contain a splash of colour in the form of a coloured border or background and are stacked in rainbow order so each design is printed in complimentary colour pairs such as red and green and yellow and lilac, this means that you could easily create opposition colour schemes to really make the colours pop and it’ll help a little with learning colour theory (if you’re interested). The cards are left blank and aren’t themed so they can be used for any occasion. The colourable spaces on the cards are bright white and lightly textured so they’re prefect for blending and shading with pencils, and for using water-based pens which don’t bleed or shadow and are ideal for the smallest spaces on the cards. Once removed, the cards do often have a bit of glue still attached but this is easily peeled off, with no damage to the cards. The cards are a mixture of portrait and landscape styles, with the majority being portrait and the designs are varied throughout but mostly nature-inspired from lions to wolves, birdhouses to landscapes, peacocks to fish and Indian doorways to patterns. These cards would be perfect to spread the colouring love with your friends and family to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries or just to say hello, I’m thinking of you, they’re sure to brighten up the darkest of days and show people you care. They could even be sent uncoloured to try and get your friends hooked on colouring – we all need more colouring buddies!
In The Midst Of Madness 