Christmas Colouring Pages

Every year it happens that between the second and the third Advent Sunday I realize that Christmas is actually quite near, and I begin to think Christmas cards and all the gifts I would like to sew or draw or paint. And I always end up doing something that I didn't plan. This time I ended up drawing Christmas colouring pages. (And now it is actually too late for posting any gifts and cards, so... Well. My family is used to get their Christmas presents at Midsummer - or later!)

Anyway. I thought it would be nice to share these colouring pages here in my blog. I know that there is already about twenty-three thousand wonderful Christmas colouring pages on this planet, but perhaps not yet any with a grumpy St. Lucia squirrel and a reindeer who is wrapping himself with wrapping paper. And I think there is always need for a grumpy St. Lucia squirrel. (Today is St. Lucia's day, by the way!) So here you are, my tiny Advent time gift for you!

Christmas Tree

Reindeer, owl and a squirrel are preparing for Christmas with my cat Astrid. One of the Three Wise Men has lost his way. A link to a PDF-file of this colouring page: HERE (link not available anymore)

Aurora Borealis

Some dwellers of the forest are having a Christmas Eve's prayer. A link to a PDF-file of this colouring page: HERE (link not available anymore)

Mister Vilhelmi Fox

"Mr Fox is writing his Christmas sermon." So says the text in the drawing. I left the pages of the books blank, so that you can decide what he is doing! (Because if you don't know any Finnish, the text under the picture is kind of irrelevant. Ok, you do know now what is written there. But you can still decide that he is Dumledore making his notes of whatever.)  A link to a PDF-file of this colouring page: HERE (link not available anymore)

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These colouring pages are all scaled for A4 size. Notice that Aurora Borealis and Mr Fox need horizontal printing! I have scanned these drawings at a resolution of 600 dpi. My print tests look ok, so I hope you will got satisfying printing results, too!

Of course you know all those nice things how you use other's art in Internet, but I still remind you: Please, print the picture only for your own use. Share only coloured versions of the picture in social media. And finally, please, mention the origin of the picture (Elina Järvinen @sinihanhi_colours in Instagram), if you share a picture of your coloured version in social media. Thank you! And happy colouring! And, of course, happy Christmas!

Little Fox's Rain Dance coloring picture

It's already cold outside (actually a little bit in inside too, at least in this apartment) and autumn colors are at their best. There has been some lovely and cosy rainy days, and soon there will be so many more rainy days, that many of us not feel them lovely anymore. For the moment when autumn rain begins to feel annoying, you can print this Little Fox's Rain Dance coloring page from here (link not available anymore). You can stay inside and just color and sip your tea or coffee or hot chocolate and let a little fox to get wet instead of you. Fox's name is Po Kettu, and he is very fluffy, very young and very happy.

EDIT... Or, if you want to colour something a little bit melancholic, you can print a picture of Rebekka Kettu from here (link not available anymore). Rebekka Kettu ('kettu' is 'a fox' in Finnish) is Po's sister and she is a very dreamy young lady.

'Lokakuu' is 'October' in Finnish. (Don't print this - use the link above.)

Of course you know all those nice things how you use other's works in Internet, but I still remind you: Please, print the picture only for your own use. Share only colored versions of the picture in social media. And finally, please, mention the origin of the picture (Elina Järvinen @sinihanhi in Instagram), if you share a picture of your colored version in social media. Thank you! And happy coloring!

Cinderella rags for a doll means a lot of dyeing and washing

Part 1. Cinderella's shift.

Princesses in rags have always holded a special place in my heart. The queen of rags is of course Cinderella (Snow White holds the second place). About thirty years I have been thinking of sewing Cinderella rags for a doll.  And now, after all that thinking, I'm finally sewing them. And it's fun!

You must always use every opportunity to draw Cinderella with rags. That is a rule. So it would have been illegal to begin to sew this oufit without drawing it first. (I may have drawn more rags than ball gowns!)

After drawing I chose the fabrics and made a test dyeing with tea.

Then I coloured my Cinderella drawing. (This is a detail from a scrapbook spread. Here you can see the whole picture which includes some cats and an other Cinderella figure.) After colouring the drawing, some viruses and bacteria decided that after 30 years of planning I'm progressing too fast. So I had a three weeks break from the project. Instead of sewing I used my time coughing and blowing.

After viruses had said goodbye, I begin to dye the fabric for Cinderella's shift. After dyeing I washed it properly (three times!), because I don't want to take any risk that the fabric would let some colour out so that a doll would get ruined.

 At this point I made some extra stains.

And then washing again. It was fun! I wish all laundering  could be that nice.

Because of all the proper laundering, the extra spots washed away almost totally. But all the washing (and sandpapering and filing) made the fabric look quite worn, and that is the most important thing. As you can see, the shift really looks worn when you compare it to that white batiste, which is the material of the shirt.

And here you can see also that the contrast between white batiste and dyed batiste is quite clear.

And here you can see the finished shirt.

 Cinderella's shift really looks worn! When I asked my husband what he thinks about this shift, he cried out (yes, he really cried out): "Poor Cinderella! Is this fair at all?" I remined him that it's only a temporay situation, that the fairy godmother is on her way already. He was reliefed :)