Category Archives: Uncategorized

If you want to feel emotionally balanced, you can’t go wrong reaching for the color green. People who consider green a favorite color are calm, family-oriented, practical, compassionate, and nurturing.

Green has long been considered the color of life, symbolizing nature, fertility, growth,  and energy. It’s also the color of money, bringing to mind images of prosperity, wealth, and abundance.

Fun Facts About Green

The next time you’re coloring with friends, impress them with these fun facts:

• Green is the national color of Ireland.
• Green was a popular choice for wedding dresses in the 1400s due to its association with fertility.
• Santa’s suit was widely portrayed as green until the 1950s when he became a staple in Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertisements.
• After London’s Blackfriar Bridge was painted green, suicides dropped by 34%.
• Scheele’s Green, a pigment used in wallpaper, home decor, and clothing, lead to thousands of deaths because of its arsenic content. It’s thought that Napoleon may have been one of the victims of this deadly shade.
• Research suggests that people perform better on tasks requiring creativity when they’re working a room decorating in green.

Shades of Green

Every colorist knows there are an abundance of shades of each color. Common shades of green include:

• Army green
• Blue-green
• Chartreuse
• Emerald
• Hunter green
• Forest green
• Jade
• Kelly green
• Olive
• Lime
• Moss green
• Shamrock green

Depending upon what shade you choose and what other colors you add, an adult coloring page with a green color palette can be playful and cheerful or sophisticated and elegant.  Past color combos featured on Simply Inspired include:

• Lilac and jade green
• Apple green and light cerulean blue
• Lime green, hot pink, orange, and bright blue

[Photo is a colored page from MiniMENTALS by Sue Chastain.]

I’ve written about coloring in adult coloring books with highlighters before, but for some reason it never occurred to me to pair highlighters with gel pens until now. The bright, bold colors of highlighters are the perfect complement to your favorite sparkly glitter gel pens.

The example above is a colored page is from Valentina Harper’s Creative Coloring: A Second Cup of Inspirations. I love her style, but totally lack the patience to fill in all those details individually. So, this technique works perfectly as a time saver. I can make a base coat quickly with my highlighters, then add as many details as desired with the glitter gel pens. Since highlighters are a lighter color, you can still see the gel pen ink perfectly.  The only difference is that layering makes your gel pen colors show up a bit darker than they would otherwise.

I used Yoobi brand mini highlighters from Target for my coloring because I love the range of colors in the set. Unfortunately, the tiny size of these highlighters makes them a little tricky to color with. If you’re buying highlighters for adult coloring books, I’d probably recommend a full size set like the 8-count Sharpie retractable highlighters on Amazon.

Also, don’t forget that highlighters glow under a black light because of the florescent ink.  If you’re looking to make unique wall art for a teen’s room, this would be the perfect way to do so!

Baby oil is good for so much more than just soft skin! Check out this great video to learn how you can use baby oil to blend together your colored pencils. This will make your projects look so much more realistic.

A color wheel can be a great tool for selecting color schemes for your pages, but you might not want to purchase one if you’re working with a tight budget. Fortunately, Color Wheel Artist has three free printable color wheels you can download. There’s a basic color chart as well as two blank charts you can use to create your own color wheel using your preferred brand of colored pencils, markers, or gel pens.

For more color inspiration, check out the posts in our Color Palettes category.

If you can’t get going in the morning without a cup of coffee, these free adult coloring pages from Moms and Crafters are sure to be a hit. There are two different styles to choose from, both of which offer multiple opportunities to try out creative color combos.

Get ready for the new year with an amazing free printable adult coloring calendar from Redefining Mom. This fabulous monthly calendar features 12 different abstract designs for you to color, including a few lovely mandalas.

You’ll need to provide your email address to gain access to the download, but it’s well worth it. I’ve already printed mine out and hung it in my office!

One of my favorite things about Prismacolors is how the pencils are easily labeled so you can keep track of what color schemes you’ve tried. This subtle palette is one I definitely plan on using again. It’s from the Prismacolor 72 count set, although I believe some of the colors might be found in smaller sets.

• PC1008 – Parma Violet
• PC956 – Lilac
• PC1005 – Lime Peel
• PC1021 – Jade Green
• PC948 – Sepia

The pretty flower design is from Color Zen by Valentina Harper.  I love the small size of this book — it’s perfect for experimenting without a huge time commitment.

When I color, I tend to use either colored pencils or markers — not both. However, Lindsay Weirich gets great results layering colored pencils over markers in this fabulous tutorial video.

If you still have gifts to wrap, here’s a unique idea for you: DIY coloring gift wrap. Take a printable coloring sheet, then cut and paste over plain gift wrap to give your package an interactive flair. It Happens in a Blink explains in greater detail.

I love this idea because it’s perfect for Christmas as well as birthdays and other special occasions, depending upon the design you select. If desired, you could even tie a couple of colored pencils to the package to play up the coloring theme even more.

Did you hear that Kate Middleton loves to color and is a fan of The Secret Garden? According to Mashable, Prince William recently told acclaimed illustrator and Order of the British Empire (OBE) recipient Johanna Basford that Kate enjoys coloring in her books.

The Duchess of Cambridge isn’t the only celebrity who loves to color either. Justin Beiber, Zooey Deschanel, and Nigella Lawson have all expressed their enthusiasm for the adult coloring craze — even going so far as to share their work on social media.