August 2 is National Coloring Book Day in the United States, and while every day is a good day to color, this is a great time to break out the crayons, colored pencils and printable coloring pages (especially since it’s so hot in a lot of the United States/Northern Hemisphere right now!).
Did you know The McLoughlin Brothers, a New York publishing firm, is credited as the producers of the first coloring book? Their The Little Folks Painting Book came out in 1879 and continued to produce coloring books for kids until 1920, when it became part of the Milton Bradley Company (thanks for that tidbit, Wikipedia!).
While many coloring books through the years have targeted kids, we know adults love coloring, too, and you can find published coloring books on just about any subject, from pop culture to animals, mandalas and more.
If you want to make your own coloring book from printables, it’s easy to do, because there are so many free printable coloring pages out there on just about every subject you can think of. A few examples I found on Pinterest:
- Butterfly coloring pages from Little Moon Paper Company
- Kawai style pages of all types from Mofukawa (the llama above is from there)
- Turtle coloring pages from Easy Peasy and Fun
- Watermelon coloring pages from Printabulls
Or check out all the options at sites like Coloringoo, Cool2BKids, Crayola, Printable Free Coloring, Super Coloring, Just Color or Coloring.ws to name a few. We printed so many coloring pages from these sites when my daughter was younger and would come at me with specific requests for what she wanted to color.
Did you know that Canva also has coloring pages? If you already pay for the service or are willing to pay for coloring pages, you can find some fun options there to make your own coloring book. You can also use simple shapes from their library or even add your own drawings. (Here’s how to make a coloring book in PicMonkey, too.) So many fun options!
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