Coloring book party favors: DIY printables and personalized

Coloring book party favors are easy to make yourself: print a short booklet for each guest, put the birthday child (or each guest) on the cover, roll it up with a few crayons and a ribbon, and you have a favor that gets used on the car ride home. A free fold-up mini book takes one sheet of paper per guest. If you want something more polished, there are personalized coloring books from several companies, and print-on-demand services that will print a book you designed. This guide covers both, plus the details that make the favor work: which crayons, what paper, and how to handle other people's kids' photos.

For more favor ideas beyond coloring, see our guide to birthday party favors that aren't junk.

The free option: a fold-up mini coloring book

The one-sheet mini book is the cheapest favor that still feels like a book.

1. Lay out eight panels. On a sheet of letter paper in landscape, draw a grid of four columns and two rows. Each panel is a page.
2. Draw or paste in pages. Front cover, six coloring pages and a back cover. Keep drawings simple with thick lines: a cake, the party theme, the birthday kid, a "draw your favorite part of the party" blank.
3. Mind the top row. The four panels on the top row print upside down so they read correctly after folding. If you are laying it out on a computer, rotate those four 180 degrees.
4. Crease, cut, fold. Fold the sheet along every panel line and unfold. Fold it in half left edge to right edge, then cut from the folded edge along the middle horizontal line, one panel wide. Unfold, and you have a slit across the two middle panels. Fold the sheet top to bottom, push the two ends toward each other so the slit opens into a diamond, and press it flat into a booklet.
5. Print one per guest. Write each child's name on the cover by hand.

Do a test sheet first. The fold is easy once you have done it once and confusing until then.

For the drawings themselves, you can sketch them or turn party photos into line art. Our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free walks through free tools, and our guide to making a coloring book from photos covers putting several pages together.

A page for every guest

The favor kids remember is the one with them in it. Two ways to do it:

• Theme page with their name. One drawing of the party theme (dinosaurs, a fire truck, a unicorn) with a blank banner, and each guest's name written in. No photos needed, works for any guest list.
• The birthday kid and the guest together. Take a photo of each guest with the birthday child at the party, turn them into line drawings afterward and mail or hand them out as a thank-you. It doubles as a thank-you note.

If you put other children's faces in the book before the party, ask their parents first. Mention it with the invitation, use a photo the parent sends you, and keep a no-photo version ready for anyone who would rather skip it. Our guide to making a class coloring book uses the same consent approach for a whole classroom.

Kids look for themselves on a page before they look at anything else, and a guest page works for exactly that reason.

Crayons, paper and printing

Crayons. Look for the AP seal. The Art and Creative Materials Institute says its AP seal goes on products certified by a board-certified toxicologist to contain no materials in sufficient quantities to be toxic or injurious to humans, including children. Four crayons per favor is plenty. For toddlers, use chunky ones; our crayons vs markers guide covers what to buy by age.

Small extras. If you add anything else to the bundle, plan for siblings too. The CPSC's Child Safety Protection Act fact sheet shows that toys with small parts for ages 3 to 6 must carry a "not for children under 3" choking warning, and latex balloons carry a warning for children under 8. Crayons and paper are the safest favor there is; keep the bag that simple.

Paper. Regular copy paper works for crayons. For markers, use heavier paper so it does not bleed through. Our guide to printing coloring pages explains how to get crisp black lines instead of gray.

Packaging. Roll the book around the crayons and tie it with ribbon or baker's twine, or slip both into a small paper bag with a sticker. No plastic filler needed.

Personalized and printed options

If you would rather not make it yourself, there are a few routes:

Option	What you get	Good for
Personalized coloring books from a catalog	A ready-designed book with the child's name, printed and shipped. I See Me! sells several, mostly themed by season	The birthday child's own book, one copy
Print-on-demand	You design the pages; a printer such as Lulu prints coloring books on demand in small runs	A printed book for each guest, if you have the time to lay it out
A local print shop	Your PDF, printed and saddle-stapled	Fast, and you can see a proof
A photo-based coloring book	Pages drawn from your own photos	Books where the kids themselves are in the pictures

Colorkin is one example of the last kind: pages are drafted with AI illustration tools from your photos and every page is checked and finished by a person. The Classroom Edition ($199) fits up to 24 children, each starring on a page, with a PDF licensed for printing copies, which can suit a large party where every family has agreed to share a photo. For a small party, the Digital Storybook ($29) starring the birthday child, printed once per guest at home, is another way to do it. Plenty of parties do not need any of this; the free mini book above is a good favor on its own.

Timing and budget

Start the DIY version a week out: one evening to draw or convert pages, one to print and fold. For a personalized or printed book, check delivery times before you order and leave a buffer for shipping.

On budget, the DIY version costs paper, ink and crayons you may already have. Personalized books vary widely in price per copy, so the deciding question is usually whether you get a file you can print for every guest or one printed book each.

More gift and favor ideas are collected in our gift ideas hub.

Questions parents ask