Fun and Varied Designs in a Portable Format designs are printed on one side of non-perforated page

This is appears to be a Portable version of Color Me Happy by Lacy Mucklow and Angela Porter. I don’t have the larger version as yet (but will be purchasing it in the future), so I can’t confirm that 100% of the designs in this book are also in the larger book. However, I looked at images from the larger book and I do see that a number of those images are also present in this book. If you have the prior book and you are looking for something new, please watch my video to be able to make an informed decision as to whether this book will work for you. I count 70 designs if you include the half-finished designs at the beginning of five of the chapters (the first one is fully colored.) There are only 65 designs which are not colored at all.

It is a smaller sized book that is actually quite nice for taking on-the-go. The designs cover a wide range of subjects and are well printed for making coloring easy. There are many intricate and small details on these designs (perhaps from being sized down from the larger book), so I think that a steady hand and good eye are helpful when coloring in this book. The author and artist give information about coloring therapy and how colors effect us. There are also two colored samples at the beginning of each chapter. The last page of each chapter is a blank page in which we are encouraged to draw and color ourselves.

The six themed chapters in this book are: Nature, Animals and Babies, Music, Food and Drink, Whimsical Imagery, and Art and Architecture – which is at odds with those listed in the product description at the time I am writing this review (which are Mandalas, Water Scenes, Wooded Scenes, Geometric Patterns, Flora & Fauna, Natural Patterns, and Spirituality.) As the same description appears for Portable Color Me Calm, I suspect that an error was made and the description was duplicated. Hopefully, this will be corrected sooner than later. If so, my apologies but I don’t seem able to edit my reviews once my photos are attached, so this warning will remain regardless of corrections to the product description.

The book is approximately 7.5 x 6 inches and is a full half inch thick. That makes for a tall book to color in but I found it doable if I positioned myself properly. I could not get the book to lay flat but as the designs were well away from the binding, I didn’t have any problems getting into all corners for coloring.

The designs are actually printed on one side of the page. The reverse side has a colorful line design that is the same for each page of the chapter. I consider that to be a very pretty page for possible waste. The pages are not perforated. The binding is sewn rather than glued, so pages can be removed (a number at a time) by snipping the threads. Unless I want to frame or give a design away, I will probably not be cutting these. I will be using the book as a carry around coloring book and I don’t want it cut in pieces.

All of my markers (both water and alcohol-based) bled through the page. My gel pens (Fiskars and Tek Writer) did not and didn’t need more than average time to dry on the surface of the page. My various coloring pencils (both soft and hard leads) worked well on the paper. If you are using markers, you will need to protect the rest of the book from leaking ink as it went all the way through the page (even my trusty Staedler triplus fineliners.) I cut down a piece of chipboard to the size of the book and am keeping it in the book to carry around with me. That way, I can use whatever coloring medium I choose with it. I’m inclined towards ultra-fine markers and coloring pencils because of the small details.