Craftiness: How to Make Coloring Book Pages from Your Instagrams

How to Make Coloring Book Pages from Your Instagrams

Coloring books are taking over our bookshelves, and we’re not mad about it. Between testing their meditative effects and publishing our very own coloring book, you could say we’ve fully embraced the trend. So it totally makes sense that we’d want to make MORE coloring pages ourselves, right? Newsflash: With the help of good ol’ tracing paper, you can make your *own* photos into coloring pages. It’s seriously easy. Scroll on to see how we did it!

Materials + Tools:

photograph, printed in black and white
scanner
tracing paper
tape
pencil
eraser
thin Sharpie
colored pencils or pens

Instructions:

1. Print your image. If the photo isn’t black and white, we suggest you print a black and white version. It will be easier to trace.

2. Tape the image face down onto a piece of tracing paper, then flip it over. You should be able to see the image through the tracing paper.

3. Carefully trace the image with a pencil. It’s okay if you make mistakes on this step — that’s what erasers are for!

4. Go over your pencil markings with a thin Sharpie and let dry.

5. Once the Sharpie is dry, go over your entire traced image with an eraser to get rid of the visible pencil markings.

6. Cut off the excess tracing paper and scan your completed image onto the computer. Then print out your scanned version.

7. Color to your heart’s content!

First things first — print your desired image from your computer. If the photo isn’t black and white, we suggest you print a black and white version. It will be easier to trace.
Pro Tip: Choose a photo with simple shapes, one where color variation and shadows are not what defines the photo. As this will become a line drawing, gradients and subtle changes from shadows will be lost. (This means that photos of people may be extra difficult to translate into a coloring page.)
Tape the image face down onto a piece of tracing paper.
Flip it over and carefully trace the image with a pencil. It’s okay if you make mistakes on this step — that’s what erasers are for!
Go over your pencil markings with a thin Sharpie and let dry.
Once the Sharpie is dry, go over your entire traced image with an eraser to get rid of the visible pencil markings.
Halfway there! After you’ve erased all of the pencil markings, cut off the excess tracing paper and scan your completed image onto a computer. Then print out your scanned version.
Trim your paper to size and color away!