Positive Thoughts free printable colouring pages

Let’s not pretend that right now is anything other than a really difficult time. Almost everywhere in the world is affected by the current pandemic, your exact situation will depend on where you are in the world of course.

Here in the UK we are on a lockdown, we can only go out for very limited things. We must stay in to stay safe and to help keep others safe too. Some people with dozens of craft type hobbies which can be done from home are maybe finding it maybe a little easier to keep busy than people whose only hobby is, for example, something like going to the gym. But we are all missing hugs with our friends and family!

Colouring became a big craze a few years ago, when adults suddenly seemed to reconnect with their younger selves and remembered just how lovely it can be to sit down and lose yourself in a little colouring in.

It is generally believed to be a great stress reliever. I can’t find any actual proper scientific studies than corroborate this, it seems most of the evidence is anecdotal but if it works for you then hooray!

I often share some of my doodles and letter art over on Instagram and I’ve taken a few of my past doodles and given them a bit of a redo to make some positive and hopefully inspiring printables.

There are 4 designs, scroll down to the bottom of the post to find the download buttons.

You can colour them in, or just leave them plain, send them to your friends, pop them up in your new temporary home office space maybe? You could get the kids to colour them or they could just use them as inspiration to design their own.

Just bear in mind that if you print these at home on an inkjet printer then the black ink will run if you get it too wet so maybe don’t use watercolours and use felt pens sparingly. Pencil crayons are probably your best bet, but you can get creative with what you have, experiment!

I used pencil crayons for some and my Promarkers on others. The Promarkers are alcohol based marker pens and I didn’t have any problems with the ink running with them. (Promarkers do seem ridiculously expensive but I have to say I LOVE mine, I’ve had them about 7 years and they are still going strong, I’d say they are totally worth putting on your birthday present list!)

I used my beautiful Caran D’Ache SwissColor colouring pencils for these pages below. These are water soluble pencils, I usually use them with water and a paint brush. This time i just used them as normal pencils, pressing quite hard to get lovely vibrant colours.

I gave these pages to some of my friends to test for me last week, this is what they came up with. Aren’t they beautiful? (my friends are the best!)

It’s fun to add a little extra to the pages if you want to, like these dots:

Click on the button below to download the printable. (If you have an issue do let me know by email sumoftheirstories(at)gmail(dot)com, this is the first time I’ve shared a printable like this so I am anticipating teething problems! I can email the sheets to you if the download isn’t working for you until I can get an issues fixed)

I have lots more ideas for colouring printables like this so will try to add some more over the next few weeks if I get chance.

A few years ago I shared some ideas of what you can do with your colouring pages once they are finished that you might find interesting too, especially if colouring is your thing,

Enjoy, I hope these pretty colouring pages give you a few moments of peace and relaxation, and then something pretty to look at for a while afterwards!

UPDATE Sept 2022: I’m in a slow stitching group on facebook and Christie in the group shared this beautiful embroidery that they’d done based on my “One day at a time” colouring page. Isn’t it gorgeous? What a lovely alternative way to use these designs. You can see Christie adapted it just a little by removing the middle circle, I guess she felt it would be a little squashed with it in.

Julie

I’ll be sharing these printables at these link ups