Festive themes that still work on paper
The best Christmas pages are the ones a child can finish in one sitting and recognise instantly. Heavy black fills and fussy interiors look good on a screen and print as grey mud, so we keep the line work open and let the colour do the work.
- Trees, baubles and stars — instantly readable, and easy to fill with pattern as children get older.
- Stockings, mittens and scarves — bold shapes that suit the youngest colourers.
- Snow globes and gingerbread houses — a scene inside a shape, which adds detail without clutter.
- Winter animals: penguins, reindeer, robins and a cat asleep by the fire.
- Snowflakes and wrapping-paper patterns — repeating motifs that also make cheap gift-wrap stamps.
- Cards and tags: a small drawing in one corner of a folded sheet, with white space left for the message.
Turn finished pages into cards and gift tags
A completed colouring page is already a small piece of artwork, and December is the one month when a stack of them has somewhere to go. Two sheets of card stock per child covers a whole class worth of cards.
- Print the page at 100% on 160–220 gsm card stock, then fold the sheet in half for an A5 card — or quarter it for four postcard-size cards.
- Cut a page into six rectangles for gift tags, punch a hole in one corner and thread ribbon through.
- Leave one panel blank: the drawing goes on the front, the message goes inside.
- Laminate the best page of the season as a placemat, or glue it to the front of a plain gift bag.
Print settings for card stock
Thick paper is the one time print settings really matter, because a card stock page that jams takes the whole stack with it.
- Feed card stock through the rear or manual slot if your printer has one, so the sheet travels a straight path.
- Keep scaling at 100% and switch off Fit to page, or the fold line will not land where you expect.
- Use pigment ink or a laser printer for anything that will be folded — dye ink can smudge along the crease.
- Run one test sheet first and set the paper type to Card stock or Heavy paper.
Quiet time in the school holidays
The long break is where a printed folder beats a screen. Staple ten pages per child at the start of the holidays, keep a tin of pencils with it, and refill it as the pages disappear — a fixed supply settles a table far better than an endless one.
Where the dedicated Christmas pack is going
A Christmas set is being drawn now: festive scenes, card and gift-tag templates, and a sheet of snowflake patterns, all on the same Letter and A4 canvases as the rest of the catalogue. When it ships it will appear in the shop and on this page. Until then, the cosy indoor packs below are the closest thing we have to a winter evening in print.
