Travel watercolors

how cool are altoids tins (you know, those “curiously strong” mints?)! as i now read the wikipedia page on altoids, i’ve found that people use those tins for loads of things. i’d seen two ideas of how to use them that i really liked:

1. a travel game kit
2. a travel watercolor kit (which i saw here, here and here)

i would like to do the first idea, but i had some technical issues with my printer and couldn’t print out the game boards the right size and i just didn’t try after that.

i decided to mass produce the second idea, on the other hand, for gifts for my american nieces and nephews for when we went to visit this past summer. so i took one tin, a block of fimo and a tube of chapstick (to make the spaces in the fimo). in the oven, and i was ready to fill it up with watercolors.

as was advised here, i mixed in a bit of water with the tubed watercolors. and it worked well. as some suggested, i used fantastix coloring tools. i honestly had some issues using them, but it could be that i just didn’t understand how to use them properly, who knows… anyway, the watercolors work just great with a regular brush.
update: more info on travel water brushes here.

in that same page, the author warned that these are watercolors for grownups, not kids, seeing as they contain toxic products. did i pay any attention to him? no! i don’t know why. luckily my daughter (who i trusted enough not to eat the watercolors or lick her watercolored fingers) didn’t ingest the colors, but she did make an insane mess out of her shirt. these fancy watercolors don’t wash away like the kid ones, oh no! (in my next post, i’ll tell you what i did with that shirt.)

lesson learned: they were definitely not the right gift for the little ones i had in mind! luckily i’d only made one so far!

update: i’ve never seen altoids in italy, but you could also use tic-tac liberty tins, too.

update #2: for a much better alternative to fantastix, read here