31 Fun Christmas designs based on vintage Christmas greeting cards – printed one side of page

Creative Haven Vintage Christmas Greetings Coloring Book

By: Marty Noble

Rating: 5 of 5

Happy Christmas in July!

The designs in this book are inspired by actual greeting cards. Marty Noble is the illustrator in the book and has interpreted the greeting cards into line art form. The designs are definitely fun and evoke a vintage style Christmas of a kinder and gentler time. There are sweet faced children galore and a variety of images of fun Santa.

The designs are not overly detailed. Some of more simple than others. There are a few that contain more detail and should take longer for a colorist to complete.

If you decide to purchase this book on Amazon, be sure that you are seeing the cover that shows in this review. Two reasons for that caveat. At the time I write this review, Amazon has combined multiple Marty Noble books together for review and purchase. There isn’t any rhyme or reason for that, just that they did.

I tried working with Amazon to get the review pulled apart but it appears that buy-in for splitting improperly combined reviews are spread across their business and some of those groups are resistant to change – even when it is amply merited.

Frankly, after spending several months and lots of my time tracking down which books (and there are many more than this) are improperly combined, I decided that Amazon can have their PAID employees do this and not a customer who is simply trying to help.

The other reason I mention the cover is that Dover has done an earlier version of this book that is printed on both sides of the page. As coloring medium seeps through their paper, I think having the one side designs makes a lot more sense.

I’ve noticed that the paper quality seems to change quite frequently on the Creative Haven line. Because of that, if you buy one of their coloring books, it may be slightly smooth or slightly rough depending on when and where it was printed. I’ve found that coloring medium, including pencils, work similarly with both slightly rough and slightly smooth paper from Creative Haven. In this case, my coloring book pages are slightly rough.

This is what I found in this coloring book and how my coloring medium works with Creative Haven books.

32 Vintage Christmas Greeting Card Designs included in the book

The designs are printed on one side of the page

Paper is the usual Creative Haven quality: white, medium weight, slightly rough and has perforated pages

Glue Binding but with perforated pages so removing a page is fairly simple

The designs do not cross over the perforations. There is a framing line of sorts at the outside edges of each design.

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page

Water-based markers bleed through in spots and show colorful shadows on the back of the page

Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. India ink pens can bleed through when I apply more than one layer of ink.

Coloring pencils work well with Creative Haven paper. I am able to get good pigment (color) lay down, layer the same color and multiple colors and to blend easily using a pencil style blender. Both oil and wax-based pencils have similar results. Hard lead pencils, like Verithins, leave dents on the back of the page.

I suggest either removing pages from the book to color or using a blotter page under your working page. I like card stock as it keeps ink from seeping through and damaging the pages below.

Here are some photos of designs from the book: