Winter Octopus

This is one of my Cards You Can Color for the winter season. It cracks me up! I mean, an octopus wearing mittens? At one point, it wore a couple of socks too. But then I started wondering if tentacles are more like hands or more like feet. You wouldn’t believe the musings I had while inventing this creature.

The octopus came about while collaborating with Lisa of Panda with Cookie. When we decided not to use the octopus and went in a different direction (more on that soon), I started to tuck the octopus away in a folder, but Lisa suggested I use it for something else.

About twelve sketches and at least five revisions later, I have this guy/gal! I had to simplify, but I’m still chuckling over one of my earlier drafts that had the octopus knitting its own hat while wrapping a present. For a 5×7 card, it got too busy.

I’m also experimenting with including a “color and shrink your own ornament” with the card. That way, you can color the card and ornament to match, and you have a ready-to-mail gift. (Have you ever played with Shrinky Dinks?) I’ve got mini-octopuses drawn on shrink plastic, ready for you to color and put in the oven to shrink, but I bumped into some technical difficulties. I think I’ve just about got it worked out.

Soon, I’ll have some winter dinosaurs to show you, too. They’re also on the whimsical side and come with an ornament made by Panda With Cookie. More about this soon. Thanks for reading!