Hello, coloring and crafting enthusiasts! This week, we’re going to delve into some helpful tools that can make your coloring experience easier and even more soothing.
- Plastic sheet protector
This is especially useful for those of us who prefer to use alcohol-based markers, which have beautifully bright pigments but tend to bleed through several coloring sheets, but some water-based markers will bleed as well. To avoid wrecking future coloring projects, we would highly recommend a few of these! Just slip one behind your current coloring sheet and the rest of your book will be safe. ($5 for 50 sheet protectors)
- Lap desk
Of course, for maximum comfort, it’s nice to sit or lie down and color on your couch, or even in your bed, but it’s difficult to find a flat enough surface on your lap or on a mattress. That’s where these lap desks come in! They’re built to be comfortable, with some cushioning for your lap, and straight and sturdy on top. These lap desks have many uses, especially for those of us who work from home, and helping your coloring sheets turn out beautiful is just one of them. ($30 for one lap desk)
- Wrist brace
Many craft-savvy, artistic people have chronic stiffness or pain in their hands and wrists – it comes with the territory of working with your hands. And even if you don’t, coloring for long enough can cause your hands or wrists to show those same symptoms of stiffness and pain, and sometimes you just want to keep coloring! Braces are very useful, they apply pressure to various parts of your hand depending on your need (wrists, carpal tunnel, you name it!) which soothes that painful, buzzing numbness and lets you do what you love for longer! Just be sure to take breaks now and then, you wouldn’t want to hurt yourself. ($13 for two wrist braces)
- Coloring test page
While many marker brands nowadays will include a test card on which you can swatch each individual marker, sadly not all of them will. However, there are lots of custom print-outs based on specific marker brands that coloring enthusiasts have made for free (or for a dollar or two), for your convenience! See our article, Coloring Techniques: Tips & Tricks for a link to a free PDF print-out test sheet for Ohuhu’s Maui line of water-based markers. And, if you’d rather make your own, you can always do that. 🙂 All you need is your set of markers and your own creativity, to make your own test sheet that works for you.
