Monday, May 25, 2009

Tutorial: How to Build Your Own Little Coloring Books

As promised, I am back with a little tutorial and downloadable instructions to make these little coloring books. You can download my instructions here:
DOWNLOAD LITTLE COLORING BOOK TUTORIAL

Yeah, so I got all crazy and made a little super hero coloring book (for Beeper--who was in and out of my workshop all afternoon waiting for its completion), a little alphabet coloring book, a little animal coloring book, and a little book of various vintage paper dolls. But the possibilities are so ENDLESS with this little book--cut-out papercrafts, connect the dots, color by numbers...anything you can find to paste into the pages, really...so, yeah, happy little coloring book building. Hope you and the kiddies dig it as much as we do...

17 comments:

Silvia LGD (Little Green Doll) said...

Thanks for this great tutorial! There are lots of possibilities!! Thanks!

Fawnda@Fireflies and Jellybeans said...

This is great! Thank you! It is going to go great with the homemade crayon roll that I made for a gift for my best friend little girl.

Catherine Peart said...

I love this. Can you explain how the paper doll one works? It looks like you have pasted in stuff but I am not sure how a child would use it. Thanks for the download, this is going to go on my list of homemade Christmas present ideas I think!

Holly said...

With the paper doll book, I actually made it the same as the otherbooks--I found paper doll images/graphics/pages for free download on various sites and then just inserted this into the document. The only change is that I printed all the pages on white card stock--so the paper dolls would be sturdier once cut out (I also only made this using 5 sheets of card stock--instead of 10 paper--because card stock is heavier weight). A couple of my favorite paper doll websites are:
--this one for an exhaustive collection of links to various paper dolls both new and vintage: http://marilee.us/paperdolls2.html#Printchildren
--this one that offers paperdolls of famous people: http://www.geocities.com/akgrgators/index.htm
--and this one where you can color and design your own paper dolls: http://familycrafts.about.com/od/paperdolls/tp/paperdolls.htm

truj said...

Thanks so much for the links - I cant wait to print some stuff off and use it. You are very clever!

Kristin said...

really fantastic idea! Thank you for sharing!

ME... said...

lovely idea - since my little boys are now too big (teens :( ) - I think I'll make one for ME! Thanks for the tutorial!

Mama Rose said...

Thank you so much for the tutorial! I can't wait to try it out. DS is 2 and really getting into coloring more and more. I'm super excited to put one together of some of his fave things!

Juddie said...

thank you so much for these links and instructions! I don't have kids but I'm always happy to find ideas for gifts.... these are really cute.

Letterpress said...

Oh, can hardly wait to put one together, but for us grandma folks, can you "type" up your instructions in easier-to-read typeface? The script is extremely difficult to make out, although I love the look.

Thanks--

Ginger said...

Thank you so much for sharing this tutorial with us all.
Can't wait to make a few* This is a wonderful idea for birthday gifts.
hugs

Dot said...

Love this... linked it on dabbled.org today:
http://www.dabbled.org/2009/06/stuff-dot-likes-links-to-check-out.html

Anonymous said...

Amazing idea! so fun and creative.
I can wait to try it out!

Petrina McDonald said...

what a fantastic idea - thank you for sharing such an informative tutorial!

Jonesy said...

these would be amazing for my daughter's second birthday but i don't know how to sew :( (it's at the very top of my THINGS I MUST LEARN TO DO! list). is there a way to secure the book without sewing?

Holly said...

Yes--there is a way to secure it--you could use a book binding method where you use an awl to punch three holes through the center (fold) of the pages and cover (while they are held securely in place with binder clips), then use some heavy duty button or book-binding thread/string to string it together--I will probably do some sort of project with a blog post on this at some point...just because. I think this technique is called a stab-stitch binding. I am sure if you Google it, you will find plenty of tutorials on how to do it. It is simple and uber easy and it works.

Jaya Pratheesh said...

thank you for this tutorial... great idea!