Adult Coloring Books by Flora Stationery
Adult coloring books have become one of the hottest trends this year. Many are bought ironically as a nostalgic nod to childhood. Or, they’re picked by people who’re unable to really get into a crossword or sudoku to relax and pass time. Flora Stationery, an ethical nonprofit organization that sells stationery products asked me if I’d like to review their adult coloring books. Of course I said yes!
The coloring books are from students in Kosovo to support a scholarship fund for young women pursuing a college education in Eastern Europe. Flora Stationery distributes a portion of their sales to support a semester for young women in college as a sustainable source of funding. Sustainable Daisy is all about sustaining lives, and a little known fact about me is that I have a big heart for women in higher education.
Slowing Down
When it comes to coloring, let me back up. For one, I love to relax. I joke how my favorite thing to do is to lounge in a beautiful place, whether that be on a picnic blanket, a sunny LA rooftop, or on my comfy queen bed. Taking it easy and melting away in the earth beneath me is the best way to end a day of hustling. In these moments I often check my phone—scrolling Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat news stories to chill out and slow down.
Physically, it’s relaxing, but mentally I’m still going a mile a minute. I notice how sporadic I can be. I will often put my phone down for five minutes just to pick it up and refresh my feed to check what’s new. It’s kind of insane, really. I don’t notice the stillness of my mind until I shut off the electronics and call it quits for an hour or more.
That realization came to me when I picked up one of the Flora Stationery adult coloring books and started scribbling away. My brain focused on one task, and it pulled on some mind muscles that haven’t been exercised since I was a kid. I wanted to finish the coloring page quickly to complete the project, as I do in most things in my life. But, when coloring, you need to take a little time to fill in the lines and get the shading right.
This required me to slow down mentally. I really enjoyed doing this. I realized that I want to do these types of exercises more often to place consciousness on my mind and acknowledge the thoughts that come and go when I’m not fixated on the contact shuffle of likes, links, and pictures.
Nostalgia Feels Good
This feeling isn’t rare. In fact, a lot of adults have paid attention to their thoughts and feelings when coloring, and science backs the facts. According to Psychology Today, since the 1920s, people started to connect the dots between expressive art thearpy and well-being, noted by psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Coloring and other expressive arts have been known to reduce fatigue, anxiety, and depression.
According to psychologist Gloria Ayala of The Huffington Post, when coloring, we activate different areas of out cerebral hemispheres. The task requires both logic and creativity which hits areas of the cerebral cortex that involves vision and motor skills. By focusing on a particular activity like coloring, we focus on it and not on our worries.
Supporting Women with Higher Education
Flora Stationery is a great company to pick up your own coloring book because of the powerful stance it holds to support young women’s education. Flora Stationery was sparked when cofounder Ashley went to Kosovo to study abroad. Ashley and her twin sister Victoria founded Flora Stationery and focus on supporting women in Kosovo because it holds a female unemployment rate of 41%.
Since women with a university degree are 28 times more likely to be employed, Ashley and Victoria knew their efforts could help make an sustainable pedestal for highly talented women to spring into a whatever future they desire. Kosovo is also the poorest country in the region, where about 40% of the population is in poverty, 10% of which live off less than one dollar a day.
If adult coloring books aren’t your thing, check out their journals, stationery notecards, or pencil bags. For something as essential in our daily lives as paper (God knows I write down a couple to-do lists a day), conscious consumerism is key here. That’s what being an eco, ethical goddess is all about.
