Nature, Flowers & Butterflies Cards & Envelopes by Rebecca Jones

These books are just something else! I am really blown away by their quality and beauty, and I can honestly say these books are perfect in every single way! Look at the foiling on the front for starters, just stunning.

As you can gather from the review title, these are not actually books but are in fact pull out greetings cards and envelopes, all completely colourable and super easy to make up. The books contain 24 cards, 24 envelopes, and a sheet of cute stickers to seal the envelopes with. Each card design has an envelope that matches its theme, and each envelope has a pattern on the inside so every part of this set can be coloured in.

The books were created in partnership with the National Trust, so are heavily animal and wildlife based. You'll find quiet fishponds, families of badgers, herds of deer, cheeky otters, sneaky mice, a kaleidoscope of butterfly species and lots more. Here's a snapshot of how the format of the book is made up. 

Left: The inside of the cards Right: The front and back of the cards

Left: the inside of the envelope Right: the front and flaps of the envelope

Nature stickers

Flowers & Butterflies stickers

A simple instuction sheet at the beginning of each book tells you how to remove and assemble the cards and envelopes. Everything is already perforated so there's minimal cutting required. These books have been made with such care and attention to detail, not to mention designed beautifully.  Rebeccas's illustrations are quaint and whimsical, my absolute favourite kind. Take a look through the slideshow of cards and envelopes from each book- sorry the pictures are quite dark, it was hard to get the lighting right (darn English weather!).

The book is quite large at around 11 inches square, each card folding to a size of just over 5 inches square. The paper is a thick, white cardstock that takes waterbased pens without bleed, and has a smooth surface that pencils lay down nicely on. Most surprisingly of all, the books are around a fiver to buy which is incredible value for money!

What I would say is that there is an awful lot of work required to colour a card an envelope as they are so crammed with detail, some of it quite small. You're not forced to colour it all of course, particularly the insides of the envelopes as they are very busy!

There are two more books planned in this series, Summertime and Christmas, releasing in June and October respectively. I cannot wait for the Christmas ones as I know they'll make lovely personalised cards for the festive season! 

Here's a card I'm working on at the moment with my Marco Raffines. 

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. You can find them on Amazon here:

The National Trust: Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes: Nature

The National Trust: Colouring Cards and Envelopes - Flowers and Butterflies (Colouring Book of Cards/Envelp)

Pre-order Summertime here:

The National Trust: The Colouring Book of Cards and Envelopes - Summertime (Colouring Cards and Envelopes)