Ms. Moffatt's Merry Mandalas - A Review

February vacation is going by so fast! Last Saturday, Lilah and I had a wonderful start to the week - we built things out of clay, needlefelted, made brownies, watched movies....

And best of all - we colored while listening to stories on our iPads. Lilah has been listening to Cragbridge Hall, Book 2: The Avatar Battle

and I was listening to The Elite

(Book 2 of The Selection series). The Cragbridge Hall books are very exciting - a bit like Harry Potter... in the future... but with technology instead of magic. And time travel! The Selection series (the fourth book comes out in May! Eeeeee!) - is a cross between The Princess Diaries and The Hunger Games. Seriously.

And what were we coloring for hours on end? Judith Moffat sent us TWO copies of her NEW coloring book! She knew that Lilah and I tended to fight over who could color which mandala and ended up making photocopies - so we each got our own coloring book.

For a review of the first book, see my blog post from last summer. The first book was very detailed and geared more towards an older audience. Although Lilah and I both adored it. This second book, has simpler shapes and is easier to color - no matter what age or skill you are at. And the characters are so charming!

Here are some of Lilah's creations... foxes, raccoons and squirrels... (love the rainbow tails!)

Love birds... (this is Lilah's favorite)

Robots... she was influenced by my color choices (see below) since I decided I was going to go a bit Steampunk with mine...

Lilah had just started on the mermaids when it was time to break for dinner...

The kid is prolific! I am notoriously slow when coloring, but I find it highly meditative and, besides, I'm not terribly competitive. Especially when I have my OWN coloring book! (Hey Judith - have I mentioned how thrilled I was to get my OWN coloring book!?!) :-)

So while Lilah did all those pictures, I only finished one, the Robots....

Here's a close-up...

You might notice that we decided to go with (Prismacolor) colored pencils this time. Last time we also used markers which bled through the paper. If you prefer markers, either make a photocopy, or put a protecting sheet between the pages. The pencils are easier to blend too and these open shapes leave more space for blending, shiny areas and rusty spots.

You can get your own copies of the mandala coloring books on Judith's Etsy shop.

Which one should you buy?

Oh, dear, I'd say, "Both!"