At one point this week, I had to explain that the snowman’s eyes were creepy.
The bell was good. The bow could stay. The eyes needed another attempt.
This is where we are with Christmas at Color and Chaos.
We have been working on Santa’s Big Book of Fun, a Christmas coloring and activity book for kids. There are coloring pages, word searches, mazes, hidden objects, spot-the-difference puzzles, and pieces to cut out and build a snowman.
Which sounds fairly straightforward when you put it like that.
Then you actually start making it.
A cute page still has to work
The snowman became a good example of how much can hide inside a simple idea.
First, the pieces needed to look right. Then I wanted to give kids a few choices. Different eyes, mouths, scarves, noses, that sort of thing.
But a face can look perfectly fine on a screen and still be a pain to cut out.
Some of the eyes were too fiddly. The mouths had the same problem. When we tried making those easier to handle, the result looked strange.
So we went back to examples from our kids’ Halloween book and worked through it again.
That is a lot of discussion about a snowman’s face.
But if a child is going to sit down with scissors and a glue stick, those details matter. I want them choosing a silly expression, not getting frustrated trying to cut around it.
My sister suggested candy canes
One of my favorite ideas came from my sister, who suggested hiding candy canes.
That became one of the hidden-object activities, and I loved how it turned out.
There is something satisfying about looking through a busy Christmas scene and suddenly noticing the thing you have been staring past. It makes you look at the artwork differently.
That page also helped set the direction for other activities.
Some of the spot-the-difference pages had great images, but we were leaning too heavily on the same little symbols. I wanted more of the detail and character we had in the hidden-object scenes.
The changes needed to belong in the picture. A good scene should still be enjoyable to look at while you are figuring it out.
The less exciting part is important, too
A Christmas activity book needs more than nice pictures.
The words have to be in the word searches. The mazes need a working route. The answers need to match the puzzles.
Then there is the layout.
I wanted the coloring pages grouped together and the activities grouped together, so you can find the kind of thing you feel like doing. We have also kept blank backs behind the printed pages and the answers in their own section.
And, just when the files were looking finished, I remembered the color test page and wanted to check the brand page against our other books.
There is always one more thing.
Christmas first. Then we’ll see what trouble we can get into.
Right now, the holiday books are the priority. I would also like to give Little Moments its own Christmas book.
After the holiday releases, we will spend more time developing things that can be enjoyed all year.
Color and Chaos is a creative brand, and books are one of the ways we get to explore that. I want room for familiar characters, new ideas, and things we have not thought of yet.
Creativity, whimsy, and cozy.
With a dash of chaos for flavor.
This week, some of that chaos happened to involve snowman eyes.