# How Wednesday Coloring Pages Became *The Dragon’s Big Day*

Every Wednesday, I make coloring pages for my grandkids.

It started as a simple little tradition. Instead of handing them another generic coloring book, I could create pages based on whatever had captured their imaginations that week. Sometimes that meant favorite animals. Sometimes it meant magical places, mischievous characters, or a particular adventure they wanted to see themselves having.

The requests occasionally required some negotiation—children are wonderfully unconcerned with copyright law—but Wednesday coloring pages became our thing.

Somewhere along the way, I had a thought:

*What if we made an entire coloring book?*

Our dragon mascot already had a personality, so the idea came together quickly. We would follow Dragon through one very busy day: waking up, eating breakfast, heading outside for a hike, playing with toys, eating dinner, brushing his teeth, reading a bedtime story, and finally going to sleep.

Nothing world-shattering. No kingdoms needed saving. No evil wizard had to be defeated before bath time. It was simply a cheerful story about a little dragon having a good day.

That became *The Dragon’s Big Day*.

Of course, “Let’s make a coloring book” turned out to contain considerably more steps than that sentence suggested.

The original plan was 22 coloring pages. Then we decided each coloring page should have a matching activity page: counting, matching, patterns, hidden objects, drawing prompts, and other puzzles tied to Dragon’s adventure. Add an ownership page, a bonus activity, the covers, publishing information, and suddenly our modest coloring book had become a 50-page project.

There were revisions.

Then there were revisions to the revisions.

Captions were standardized. The entire story changed from past tense to present tense. The title changed. The cover changed. A breakfast maze was politely dismissed after proving that several breakfast foods were mathematically unreachable. Rabbit footprints briefly resembled women’s high heels. One rabbit was apparently traveling backward. Dragon’s feet discovered a way to pass directly through his blanket.

Fortunately, my family served as alpha readers and quality control. They found the things that the people staring at the pages for hours could no longer see. The rabbit is now moving in the correct direction, Dragon obeys the established laws of blanket physics, and every page has been checked, corrected, and checked again.

Probably.

No—seriously. We are calling it final.

*The Dragon’s Big Day* includes 22 story coloring pages and 22 matching activity pages, following Dragon from the moment he wakes up until bedtime. It was designed for approximately ages 5–9 and is available as an instant-download PDF that can be printed at home whenever a new coloring adventure is needed.

This book began with three grandkids, a Wednesday tradition, and the idea that making something especially for someone is more fun than simply buying whatever happens to be on the shelf.

Now it is the first coloring book from The Mugs of Achievement Shop.

And seeing it sitting there in the store as a real product is pretty darn satisfying.

You can find *The Dragon’s Big Day* in our new **Coloring Books** section.

We made a book.