colouring Archives - Cards and Gift Wrap

Posted on March 13, 2020June 3, 2023 by janet — Leave a comment

Coronavirus – 3 ideas to help you through the crisis

If you are finding the Coronavirus dominating the news and beginning to seriously affect your daily life, here are some simple ideas to help you through the crisis.

3 ideas to help you through the Coronavirus crisis

1- Don’t send germs through the post!

All that licking and sticking when you send a card or letter? (Not that I’m totally sure that this is a method of transmission of the virus but why take the chance.)

Instead send a Pigeon Letter!

Pigeon letters need no licking and can be sealed with a self adhesive postage stamp. With lots of pretty patterns to choose from, Pigeon letters look great and will bring a smile to the face of anyone stuck in self-isolation. Write your letter on the inside, fold your Pigeon, seal with a self-adhesive stamp and send your Pigeon flying through the post. No germs included!

If you do want to send them ‘spit free’ use a Wax Seal Kit.

Now is a great time to get yourself addicted to wax sealing your cards. Believe me, once you’ve started melting and stamping with a wax sealing kit you will want to put a seal on everything!

Which one will you choose? I recommend starting with a heart in an envelope as shown in the picture. But you also might like a smiley face, paw prints or maybe a cupcake.

2- No toilet roll left? No problem!

How about some pretty Tissue Paper?

Here you’ll find lots of tissue paper with pretty patterns and designs.

If you find the supermarkets and corner shops are bereft of loo roll then do not despair. You could have flamingos or tropical birds. Stars or stripes. Zig zags or polka dots.

Whatever your personal hygiene preference our tissue paper will brighten up any bathroom.

The only difficulty we can see is that you might find it too beautiful to use!

3 – Bored in self-isolation? Get creative!

Don’t go stir crazy. Instead get your creative juices flowing and encourage your mindfulness.

Hang in there, it’s only a few days. How about making this gorgeous sloth to hang out with you in your solitude? Each of our papercraft kits will take several hours to complete so your time in limbo will seem like no time at all and you’ll have something to show for it at the end. If a sloth isn’t your thing, check out the flowers or some of the other animals available in our Paper Craft Kits.

If there are a few of you stuck for something to do then you need a Colour in Tablecloth.

Great for all ages, big enough to cover your table and with space for everyone to find their own bit. Work together to create a masterpiece. Brighten up your mealtimes (even if it is the 5th time you’ve had pasta this week because that’s all you have left in the cupboard).

All of our paper craft kits and colouring in will provide you with hours, if not days of creative mindfulness and relaxation.

So don’t let the Coronavirus get you down. Find something to create and fill the time. Send a germ free letter or card to brighten up someone’s day. And definitely don’t get caught short!

Posted on October 11, 2018October 12, 2018 by janet — Leave a comment

Halloween Party Ideas

When I was young we went Guising at Halloween. Basically we dressed up, scary or not scary, went round the town knocking on doors and performing some party piece in return for some sweets, a tangerine or two or a handful of monkey nuts. Then we returned home and my mum had arranged a halloween party in the house. Usually it was just me and my neighbour. Even with just two of us, it was great fun and those halloween memories have stayed with me. We didn’t have a lot of money, though we never lacked for anything but with everything being so commercialised today I thought it was worth compiling some ideas for Halloween. Ideas that won’t cost the earth but will be fun for all and leave memories that will last a lifetime.

I think for a first rate Halloween party all you need is food, some decorations and games. And to be honest you don’t really have to have the decorations but I’ve added a few ideas anyway.

Halloween Party Food

My mum hates cooking! We didn’t have fancy halloween snacks we had regular food but it was all labelled. Nothing looked gruesome or oozed with fake blood. It was all food we knew but every plate was labelled. Crisps became ‘witches toenails’, sausages became goblin toes and jelly became slime. It doesn’t have to take hours of culinary prowess to conjure up a Halloween spread. If you do want to go a bit out of the ordinary then here are some simple ideas.

At a time when the children bring home sweets and chocolate in abundance there are loads of ways to dress up fruit in to Halloween themed treats.

Take some oranges or satsumas and one black permanent marker. A little creativity and you’ve got lots of tasty mini pumpkins to eat.

Use cocktail sticks to cover a pumpkin in fruit skewers/kebabs. If you can’t be bothered carving the pumpkin, draw a face on with a black marker pen. Result, one pumpkin with a wild and scary but very healthy hairdo.

Buy some sausages and some ready to roll puff pastry. Roll out your pastry and cut in to strips and wrap round your sausages. Hey presto some sausage mummies. Add some eyes with writing icing.

You’ll find all these Halloween ideas on my Halloween Party Food board.

Halloween Party Decorations

Rock painting has become somewhat a craze here in the UK. When my 2 year old and I were doing some recently I discovered I could paint rock monsters really quickly and keep his interest. I’ve since seen a suggestion for using these for Halloween. What’s more you could paint your rocks, use them for your party and then hide your rocks later for others to find. You could even have monster rock painting as an activity at your Halloween party. All you need are some rocks, some paint (acrylic is good) and some permanent markers. You don’t have to give your rocks a background colour. With just a couple of marker pens you can do eyes and teeth on any rock and they look really fun, cute and so quick to do. I found that a white marker pen was a lot quicker and less messy than paint!

Use old sheets or towels draped over a balloon and hang up to make ‘ghosts’. Add eyes if you like or just leave ghostly shapes hanging (especially if you want to reuse your sheets!).

Everyone likes colouring in. You could colour in this giant poster/tablecloth over the days leading up to Halloween or have it out as an activity at the party. Either way it will provide some much needed therapy on a scary night.

Halloween Party Games

You’ll need your black marker pen again for this game and some toilet rolls. Draw black eyes and ghostly mouths on your whole toilet rolls. Stack them up and then play knocking them down. Use a pumpkin as a bowling ball. I’ve seen this game done with plastic cups too but you can always reuse the toilet rolls after.

While you’re buying toilet roll in bulk anyway, you can play wrap the mummy. Choose one or two ‘volunteers’ to be the mummies. See how long it takes to wrap them in toilet roll, please do leave a space for the mouth and nose! Or split in to teams and race to wrap, or give a time limit and see who wraps the most in, say, 5 minutes.

If you can get pumpkins with stalks still on then set them up for a ring toss. Use glow sticks in the dark for extra spook fun.

Of course there is also dooking (or dunking) for apples, also called apple bobbing. Not sure it passes health and safety requirements these days but it’s a classic. Do have a towel on hand!

We used to make treacle scones and hang them up on a string. We had to try and get one in our mouths with our hands behind our backs. I have to say that jam doughnuts are my children’s preferred food to stretch for.

I hope I’ve given you some ideas for how to run a Halloween Party without great expense and without too much time to prepare. Your children will love it. I’d love to hear what other simple, low cost Halloween ideas you have or how your party went. Do leave your ideas in the comments below.

Posted on December 21, 2016July 22, 2018 by janet — Leave a comment

Stocking Fillers

If you’re looking for some last minute stocking fillers then here are a few ideas. Or perhaps you need a couple of activities for that quieter period between Christmas and New Year before the children go back to school. These should keep everyone busy.

1 Notebooks

You can never have too many notebooks! What more can I say?

2 Happy Families

Happy Families is the classic game. I remember winning this as a child but somehow I never do anymore!

3 Paperchains

Despite being used as my lick-machines over the years it appears my children still enjoy making paperchains, either in the traditional way or to make decorations for the tree.

4 Christmas Activity Pack

Doodle your way to New Year with these sweet illustrations ready for you to add your own artistic flair to.

5 Colour in Tablecloth

Keep the whole family scribbling, doodling and colouring at mealtimes and in between. 1m by 1m is a lot of space to colour in!

These are just a few stocking fillers ideas, you’ll find more in my shop.

Posted on April 19, 2015 by janet — Leave a comment

Staying within the lines – or not?

“Coloring is an activity that we tend to associate with children. As we grow older, we put aside our crayons and colored pencils in favor of more respectable writing utensils like pens and highlighters. However, it turns out coloring can be beneficial for adults — namely for its de-stressing power.”

via Coloring Isn’t Just For Kids. It Can Actually Help Adults Combat Stress..

Of course – anyone who loves Phoenix Trading knows this already and if you’ve had one of our colouring in tablecloths you’ll know that you probably spent more time colouring in than your children did…at least that’s what happens in my house! I think we adults sometimes need an ‘excuse’ to colour in, it’s not something we see as an adult activity, there are always more ‘important’ things to do – but with one of our tablecloths, or maybe a frieze then we have the perfect excuse. And of course, any such creative activity we can do with our children has to be a positive thing for us and them surely.

Here are a few of my favourite products:

1 – Colour in hats – we have two sets: the first contains a mermaid, a butterfly and a fairy, the second a chief, space cadet and king. Both illustrated by Amanda Loverseed.

2 – Colour in map of the British Isles – educational and destressful this comes in a presentation tube too so makes a great gift, and is also illustrated by Amanda Loverseed.

3 – Colour in friezes – I love the animal train, though we also have farm, princess carriage, under the sea and a nativity one at Christmas. I think these are particularly great as they come in six pieces and can be coloured individually and put together later to make a large frieze if you wish, but they look great on their own too. All beautifully illustrated by Claire Winteringham, Alison Hullyer or June Armstrong.

I do get parents tell me they will get frustrated if their children colour outside the lines (maybe I just have too many ocd friends?)…my response – buy two, one for you, one for them!