Here are a few good reasons to make this mini DIY Christmas coloring book: It is very cute, with its kawaii handmade cover; It makes a great Christmas craft to do with kids; It comes with a free printable template for making the cover out of craft paper; You can use this guide to crate a blank notebook or your own Christmas story book.

On top of that, you will learn how to create a coloring book in Word. Isn’t that a skill to cherish?

For this DIY coloring book I used illustrations from my Christmas cartoons clipart set, which is available in my Etsy shop. The set includes black and white images for making Christmas coloring pages. Of course, you can use any other illustrations you have, just make sure you are allowed to use the images for this purpose.
The black and white images in my clipart set can be used for personal purposes, while the colored images in the set are good for both personal and small commercial use.

DIY Christmas coloring book

Part 1: create the coloring book’s layout in Microsoft Word

• Open a new file in Microsoft Word. Go to layout in the top menu bar and change the document orientation to landscape.

• Decide how many pages your coloring book will have. Each word page will include 2 pages of the coloring book. I have 12 images in the Christmas cartoons clipart set, so I want to have 6 word pages. Create additional word pages by pressing ENTER multiple times.

• Click on insert -> shapes and choose the rectangle. draw a rectangle and select it. Once it’s selected a shape format tab will appear. Click shape format -> shape fill and select no fill. Go to the size tab and set the rectangle’s dimensions to 16X26 cm (10.23” X 6.29”).

• Go back to insert -> shapes and pick the straight line tool. Use this line to mark the center of your rectangle, so that you know where to place your illustrations. You can remove this line before printing.
To draw a perfectly horizontal line, hold down your shift key while drawing. Align the line to the exact center of the rectangle by selecting both the line and the rectangle (hold down the shift key to select more than one object) and clicking shape format -> align -> align center.

• Duplicate the rectangle and line by selecting them together and then copy (right click -> copy) and paste (right click -> paste). Drag the copy to the correct place in the next page.
Repeat this until you have a copy of the template on each word page.

• Bring in the illustrations! Go to insert -> picture and choose the image file from your folder. Once the image is on the page, select it and click picture format -> wrap text -> in front of text.

• The images that I used from my kawaii Christmas clipart set come in both jpeg and png formats. The png has transparent background. If you are using a different image and it has white margins that covered your template, erase the white areas like this: with the image selected, go to picture format -> color -> set transparent color. Click on the white area of the image, and all the white will disappear.

• Position all of the illustrations in your coloring book.

Part 2: make the DIY coloring book cover from craft paper

• Print out this DIY coloring book cover template. It includes all the parts needed to making the cute Santa character from craft paper.
Next, print this “Let’s Color” Label (optional).

• Cut all the pieces of the template and trace them into the craft paper of the desired color. You can print the template on white craft paper and use the white parts as they are. I use a craft knife for all of the straight lines.

• Assemble Santa Clouse:

1. Glue the hat and the beard on to of the face. It’s best to use stick glue.

2. Place the hat’s lining

3. Add the eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth.

4. Glue the Eyes’ sparks and the tongue.

• Cut a colored craft paper to a rectangle sized 16X26 cm (10.23” X 6.29”). This will be the cover of your coloring book. I chose the color blue because It looks nice with the paper Santa Clause on top of it.

• Fold the cover in half. Since the craft paper is thick, I recommend scoring it before folding it. This will make a clean, precise fold. To score, place a ruler in the middle of the paper (13 CM from the side) and stroke a soft crease with the dull edge of a butter knife.

• Glue Santa to the cover of your Christmas coloring book.

Part 3: assemble your DIY Christmas coloring book

• Cut all the internal coloring pages of your book. Watch out not to cut them in half by mistake!

• Fold each page in the middle.

• Pack the pages in the desired order. Flip to see that all of the pages are set right.

• Fold the cover in half, and add it to the coloring book.

• Staple the coloring book like this:

1. Lay the coloring book facing down on a foam surface. Split up your stapler and staple the spine of the coloring book.

2. Flip the coloring back up and bend the staples edges inward using a metal tool (I used the staple remover part of my stapler).

• Add the “Let’s Color!” label to the cover.

Congratulations! You just learnt how to create a coloring book from scratch using Microsoft Word and craft your own DIY cover! 😀

I will add this tutorial to my Pinterest, where I collect lots of inspiring things. Feel free to Pin it too!

Want more holiday fun? Here are some lovely Christmas freebies for you:

► Gingerbread house template to make and color

► Christmas coloring pages for kids

► Christmas tags and labels for Christmas cookies

► Letter to Santa template with cute illustrations

* Please note that all of the free content in my website is for personal, non-commercial use only. This includes all printables, graphics and templates. Please don’t share them with appropriate link and credit. Thank you!