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Moving to the Houston area has been really great for me so far. I’m not around a daily source of negativity and it’s amazing how much stress is relieved from just the removal of one person from your life. Positivity begets positivity and negativity does just the same.
I love how much there is to do in this gigantic metro area. Pretty much anything I can think of I’m sure to find in this big ol’ city which is definitely the largest I’ve ever lived close to. I mean, I used to live in THE City in Oklahoma (yes, in Oklahoma they call Oklahoma City either “OKC” or “The City”). OKC is very similar size-wise with 620 mi² compared to Houston’s 669 mi² but while my Oklahoma “Big City” had around 640,000 people, Houston has over TWO MILLION people. Now that’s a HUGE difference, isn’t it?
Another reason why being in this region is so good for me is because I’m so much closer to my parents. And I love my parents. They’re pretty awesome people. And with all of us getting older, it’s nice to have a nearby support system. In fact, my afternoon has been scheduled to take my dad to the doctor today and I’m really pleased that I’m able to help out with this. After all, the guy has driven me to doctor’s appointments and been there for all of my planned surgeries my whole life. And it feels good to return the favor. And being a 7-hour drive away meant that before this wouldn’t have been possible for us.
Being nearby also means I just flat out get to spend more time with my parents. Just the other day my mom and I decided to run around town and spend a little money :) We both like to shop and I think it’s a genetic thing because so does my sister, and my grandmother, too, come to think of it. We had run all over the place and decided to grab some Taco Cabana, one of another reason I LOVE LIVING in the Houston area :) Getting out of my mom’s car I went to close the door and I straight up closed my own head in my own door. Like, I don’t know, guys. I can’t even say somebody else slammed the door and my head got in the way because I did this to myself.
It hurt SO BAD that I got back in the car and started to apply pressure to my head, more in an OMG what did I just do way repeating “I think this is bad” over and over and watching two guys eating outside straight up staring at me wondering what on earth just happened here. Sorry, guys, I just don’t know.
When I get over the shock of my painful accident we go inside and I’m telling my mom what a nasty headache I’ve given myself when she tells me “you’re bleeding”. So we go to the register to order and I’m holding my hand to my head in this weird way to apply pressure but the blood is trying to trickle down my forehead anyway when I awkwardly explain what happened. And that sweet young lady instinctively hands me this super absorbent blue paper towel which I gratefully took from her and didn’t even flinch when she called me ma’am. :) Man, that calling me ma’am business normally has me seeing RED these days, haha!
Sure if I didn’t live here near my parents there is no way that I would have slammed my head in her car door and cut myself to the point that I’m DEFINITELY going to have a scar, but I also wouldn’t have kind of a funny story about how this totally random and crazy stuff ALWAYS seems to happen to us.
And so since I love my Mom and I know a lot of you love yours, too, I decided to make a series of free floral coloring page printables that you or your littles can DIY up for mom. Because straight up, moms always, always love a handmade gift.
Ready to color already? Let’s print up, color and cut out these gorgeous FREE floral notecards that make the perfect Mother’s Day Card!
For this project you will need:
- Free printable notecards print file
- white cardstock
- a2 sized envelopes
- printer (I am in LOVE with my HP Envy 4520)
- Tombow Brights Dual Brush Pens (or your choice of marker/map pencils)
- scissors
- craft knife & ruler (optional)
First things first, you’ll need to download your FREE bookmark coloring file here. It’s a PDF and all ready to go but let’s talk print settings really quickly…
…you don’t technically need to print the cover page so under PAGES TO PRINT click “Pages” and then put in 2-3. Under PAGE SIZE & HANDLING click “fit”. Under ORIENTATION select “Portrait”. Hit print and you’re good to go!
I decided to color my notecards before cutting them out, but you can also cut them and color them whenever. If giving to kiddos, it would probably be easier to go ahead and get them cut, folded and all of that business before letting them at it with a bunch of markers. But if you’re an adult rocking these gorgeous coloring pages, well, do whatever you darn well, please. You are grown, after all, right? :)
And just because I am super IN LOVE with my new Tombow Brights Dual Brush Pens I’m going to sing their praises just a little bit. And if you’re wondering, this is not a sponsored post and I’ve never worked with Tombow before. I had just noticed that on Instagram an awful lot of bloggers use these markers and I figured there had to be a reason for that. And there is… they are freaking awesome. I started off with the Dual Brush Markers pack in Bright and now I’ve got a whole ton of sets. But, funnily enough, I haven’t even used up the ink in the ones from my first set. And, guys, I’ve colored a BUNCH of stuff while developing this floral coloring freebies series so it’s pretty darn impressive.
The colors are strong and when you swipe the brush across the paper it doesn’t get all weird and streaky. Have you ever done that? Colored something and you can see the lines of the strokes you took to fill in your coloring page? I HATE THAT. On my much larger items (they’re coming tomorrow, huzzah!) it started to get a bit streaky like that, but we’re talking coloring in the equivalent of half a page of letter paper. It’s, like a huge expanse. And if you go back over it in a few different directions you can pretty much eliminate the streaks. Or, like for flower petals, you can easily make it work with the design.
Oh, and if you want to blend colors and go over an area say a yellow area with pink to make a gorgeous orange, it only blends on the paper… NOT on the marker’s tip. I seriously have no clue how this works because every marker I’ve ever had transfers the ink to the other markers when you try to blend. I was so worried about this, that for this series I never blended on my projects because I was worried about ruining the markers by muddying their colors. But on my next series I decided, what the heck, let’s give it a go and, guys, seriously, LOVE. No ruined markers AT ALL.
Ooh, and that reminds me that since I have used these a lot I expected that by now the tips would get fuzzy or frayed but they’re seriously just as good as the day I first got them.
So, to recap. Tombow Brights Dual Brush Pens have, like a ton of ink. The colors are gorgeous and they have lots of preplanned sets if you’re not the best at pairing colors. They don’t streak for normal projects (although they do a bit when coloring in HUGE expanses). They are blendable without the tips being ruined or the colors muddied. The brush tips stay nice and beautifully brush-like even after tons of use. Now just to placate my nephew we need to hashtag this business #nonspon because he insists this is vital (dude is telling me how to do my job these days and he’s probably not wrong — love him! #NONSPON :)
Whether you’ve decided to color first, or later, you’ll eventually need to cut these gorgeous floral notecards out, right? I did this several times and in several ways and I got the best results the most consistently by first folding the page in half so that your designs are on one side of the fold and the blank white cards or on. Now with a ruler and a craft knife, cut right through the middle of the cards to turn it from one page into 2 and then trip the excess off of the remaining 2 sides (the fold remains the fold). If you don’t want to bust out the craft knife, you can always give them a quick snip with scissors, but you’ll get the best looking results with a little more effort.
Pair these guys with some a2 envelopes you can either purchase OR cut some envelopes to assemble yourself with your Cricut. Notice how the insides match the notecards? I actually used the coloring pages that are going to be available tomorrow as the liners, isn’t that so cute? Gah, I just love these so much!
Since I’m all gung-ho about having a nice stash of stationery I’ve colored up 2 sets of these cards so I’ve got 8 ready to go. And they’re all just a little bit different in colors so that even IF I send the same design to someone twice, they won’t be exactly the same.
And with Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday (did you forget, oh gosh, I hope you didn’t forget!) you have a lovely DIY card that is cheap and easy that Mom is sure to love the effort you put into. Even if you’re practically 40 :) Moms always love that stuff!
