I Want Some Time for Myself
Soft Life Stress Relief
Bold coloring pages for the moments you take for yourself. Choose your colors and get into the page.
Coloring Books by Marenda Hughes
Unplug While Still Creating.
Your attention gets pulled in a lot of directions every day. Nearly 7 in 10 employed adults say work is a significant source of stress, and women are more likely than men to report very high stress.[1]
Coloring gives some of that attention somewhere specific to go.
Studies of structured coloring have found lower short-term anxiety, sustained engagement, and increased flow in some participants.[2][3][4]
For 20 minutes, you can focus on low-stakes creative choices, use your eyes and hands together, watch progress happen in front of you, and make something tangible.
That is what I mean by unplug while still creating.
Color With Marenda gives you books for different moods, moments, and reasons to color, with Black women intentionally represented throughout the collection.
Color. Breathe. Reset.
“This is one of my all-time favorite coloring books. Every page is beautifully designed, illustrated with so much care and intention.”
TC Cooper · Verified Amazon Purchase · 5★
The Collection
What Do You Feel Like Coloring Today?
I Need Something Beautiful
Soft Life in Bloom
This one is for the days when you want something beautiful to focus on. Flowers. Gardens. Peaceful scenes. You bring the color.
I Need Encouraging Words
Soft Life Affirmations
Affirming words hit different when you sit with them for a minute. Say the affirmations aloud. Color the page.
I'm Waiting and Hoping
Baby Blessings & Miracles
Waiting is its own kind of experience. There can be hope, fear, excitement, disappointment, imagining, praying, planning and a whole lot of waiting.
I made this book to give you something beautiful to visualize, hope for, and meditate on while you wait.
I Want Something Cozy and Fun
Cozy Chibi Lifestyle
Sometimes cute is enough. Airports. Tennis. Shopping. Everyday little adventures.
Pick a page because it looks fun and color it.
Fun is a perfectly good reason.
For Kids & Kids at Heart
Super Cute Baby Animals
Yes, I made this one with kids in mind. I also know grown people, like me, who will absolutely sit down and color a baby giraffe because cute is cute.
Color it with your kids, grandkids, nieces or nephews. Give it to a little somebody you love. Or keep the baby animals for yourself.
Don't Buy These Books If You're Not Gonna Color.
Seriously.
I didn't make these books to sit untouched on somebody's shelf.
Open the book. Pick a page. Use the good markers. Use the cheap markers.
Color for ten minutes. Color for two hours. Finish the page. Do half of it and come back next week.
Frame one. Give one away. Put one on the refrigerator if that's where it belongs.
Do something with the damn book.
Find My Book
See Yourself Here
I Make Coloring Books for All Women Featuring Black Women.
It's important to open a coloring book and see people that look like me. Representation matters.
That means Black women are in these pages on purpose. And I want us in the whole picture.
Working. Resting. Traveling. Creating. Dating. Building families. Playing tennis. Sitting outside. Having fun. Going through things. Living regular life.
I want Black women to open these books and see ourselves there.
And I want every woman who picks up one of my books to feel free to make the page her own.
Outside the Lines
There is No Right or Wrong Way to Color.
If your flowers are blue, color them blue.
If your sky is pink, make it pink.
If you want every little detail perfect, do that.
If you want to color outside the lines because you felt like it, do that too.
Two people can start with the same exact page and end up with two completely different pieces.
That's what I like about it.
I made the starting point.
What you do with it is yours.
Show Off Your Masterpiece
Leave it in the book if you want. Or take it out.
Date it. Frame it. Put it on your desk. Hang it on the wall. Give it to somebody. Take a picture. Send it to me.
If you finish a page and look at it like, damn, I did that, act like it.
You made that.
Try a Page
You May Try Before You Buy.
Print a free Color With Marenda page.
Grab whatever you like to color with. Choose your colors.
Then see what you make of it.
Get a Free Coloring Page
Color Today
Want Coloring Pages You Can Print Right Now?
That's what the printables are for.
Download a page. Print it. Color it today.
Shop Printables on Etsy
About Color With Marenda
Every Book I Make Has a Reason.
Sometimes the reason is serious.
Sometimes it's personal.
Sometimes I saw something missing.
Sometimes I wanted Black women to see ourselves on the page.
Sometimes I wanted to make something beautiful.
Sometimes I wanted something cute.
Sometimes I had an idea and thought, I would color that.
That's enough of a reason too.
I make the page from whatever brought me to it.
You bring whatever brought you.
Then you color.
Color. Breathe. Reset.
There Is a Reason Coloring Keeps Showing Up in the Research.
Researchers have studied structured and mandala coloring with community adults, emergency-room patients, college students, women in midlife, caregivers, women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer, and hospitalized adults.
The settings are different, but researchers keep asking a similar question: what happens when you give your attention to coloring for a while?
20 Minutes Can Matter.
In a randomized study of 120 adults ages 55 to 75, the group that spent 20 minutes coloring a mandala reported significantly lower anxiety than the reading group.[2]
Coloring Can Hold Your Attention.
In a randomized emergency-department study, 46.2% of people given adult coloring materials stayed engaged for at least an hour, compared with 4% of the comparison group. Anxiety scores also fell an average of 3.7 points in the coloring group compared with 0.3 points in the comparison group.[3]
Coloring Can Create Flow.
A study involving 76 college students found that a 30-minute mandala-coloring activity significantly increased flow, the state of becoming absorbed in what you are doing.[4]
Researchers Have Studied Women and Caregivers Too.
Studies have examined mandala coloring among women in midlife,[5] palliative-care caregivers,[6][7] and women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer.[8][9]
The Research Is Growing.
A 2026 meta-analysis combining 17 studies and 987 hospitalized adults found reductions in anxiety and stress and improvements in well-being and hope associated with mandala coloring. The researchers rated the overall quality of the evidence as low.[10]
A separate 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of nine randomized trials involving 648 middle-aged and older adults also reported lower anxiety and depressive-symptom scores, while rating the certainty of evidence very low because of differences and limitations among the studies.[11]
Coloring also puts the eyes and hands to work together. Research on drawing describes visuospatial processing and eye-hand coordination as part of visually guided drawing tasks.[12]
The point is simple. Coloring gives your attention somewhere specific to go while you are still making choices, using your hands, watching progress happen, and creating something of your own.
That is what I mean by unplug while still creating.
Questions
A Few Things Worth Knowing
On Amazon. The book collection above takes you directly there. As I finish the permanent book pages on Marenda.biz, you'll also be able to see more about each book before you buy.
Whichever one makes you want to color. Flowers? Affirmations? Cute chibi scenes? Baby animals? Something connected to waiting and hoping? Start there.
Good according to who? You're coloring your page. That's the whole point.
Absolutely. You can stay inside every line too. Your page. Your call.
Yes. It's important to me to open a coloring book and see people that look like me. Black women are intentionally featured throughout Color With Marenda in everyday life, at work, resting, traveling, creating, building families, having fun and going through things. These books are for all women.
No. It was created with kids ages 4–8 in mind, but I fully support grown people coloring cute baby animals. Color with the kids in your life or keep the book for yourself.
Whatever you like. Colored pencils. Crayons. Markers. Gel pens. Mix them. If you're using markers you've never tried on the paper before, test them first.
Whatever makes sense to you. Leave them in the book. Date them. Frame them. Gift them. Photograph them. Share them. If you love what you made, treat it like something you made.
Please do. Instagram: @colorwithmarenda. TikTok: @iammarenda. Email: contact@colorwithmarenda.com. I want to see it.
Yes. You can download printable Color With Marenda pages from Etsy and start coloring today.
References
Research & Sources
- American Psychological Association. Stress in America 2025: A Crisis of Connection.
- Coloring Activities for Anxiety Reduction and Mood Improvement in Taiwanese Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Study.
- Randomized Controlled Trial of Adult Therapeutic Coloring for the Management of Significant Anxiety in the Emergency Department.
- Flow and mandala coloring study.
- The Effect of Mandala Coloring on Anxiety and Quality of Life of Women in the Climacteric Period: A Randomized Controlled Study.
- Mandala Coloring and Palliative-Care Caregivers.
- The Effects of Mandala Coloring Applied to Caregivers of Palliative Care Patients on Perceived Stress, Anxiety Level, and Quality of Life.
- Mandala Coloring Among Women Receiving Chemotherapy for Early-Stage Breast Cancer.
- Mandala Coloring Versus Sudoku Among Breast-Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.
- 2026 Meta-Analysis of Mandala Coloring Among Hospitalized Adults.
- 2026 Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Mandala-Based Art Interventions Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults.
- Review of Visuospatial, Sensorimotor, and Eye-Hand Processes Involved in Drawing.
Much of the published adult-coloring research has studied structured or mandala coloring. Study findings can vary by person, population, and activity. Color With Marenda is a creative product. The research shared here explains why researchers continue to study coloring and the experiences associated with it.