There are many ways to tell a story.
Some are written in words. Some are captured in photographs. Others can be found in the places we visit, the things we collect, or the memories that suddenly return when we see something familiar.
For the past few years, this blog has been my place to share stories about things that interest me. Travel, traditions, history, beliefs, places, and sometimes simply something that makes me curious enough to learn more about it and write it down.
This time, I tried something completely different.
Instead of ending the story on a webpage, I turned it into a BOOK!
In August 2026, I published 1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA: Childhood Treasures & Memories, the first coloring book in my Memory Box Series, under the pen name Virgo • the StoryTeller.
I shared the book on Facebook, Instagram and X when it was published, but I decided to wait a little longer before writing its full story here. I still had some work to complete for its Amazon page, including the A+ Content, and I wanted to finish that part of the journey first.
More importantly, I did not want this post to be just an announcement that I had published a book.
I wanted to tell the story behind it.
Why I Decided to Create a “Coloring Book”
If you have visited my blog before, you probably know that it has never been limited to one particular subject.
I write about things that catch my interest and subjects I enjoy exploring. Starting to create coloring books does not mean that will change. This blog will not suddenly become a place where every story is about coloring.
Writing is still something I love to do.
What has changed is that I have discovered another way of telling stories.
Before I started this project, I had never really thought about a coloring book that way. But after spending months learning about coloring books and looking more closely at the people who enjoy them, I began to understand why they mean much more to some people than simply filling empty spaces with colors.
For many, coloring is a way to slow down, relax and spend some quiet time away from everyday routines. For others, coloring books become collections. They can be gifts, something to enjoy with family and friends, or simply a little personal space to sit down with a favorite set of pencils or markers and create something of their own.
That was what drew me into this world.
I began to wonder whether I could combine that experience with something I already loved: creating ideas and telling stories.
Turning Memories into 1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA
For my first coloring book, I chose to begin with memories.
1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA was created around the feeling of looking back at everyday things that once surrounded us, especially the objects and experiences many of us touched, played with, carried around, collected or simply had somewhere in our homes.
It is not intended to be an encyclopedia of the decade, nor is it about proving that every single item belonged exclusively to the 1990s.
The idea is much simpler.
It is about recognition.
That little moment when you look at something and think:
Oh, I remember that.
And perhaps one memory leads to another.
I will not introduce too many of the items here. Part of the fun is opening the book and discovering them for yourself.
The finished book contains 54 single-sided coloring pages with bold outlines and open spaces designed to make the pages enjoyable and approachable to color. The collection moves through different kinds of memories rather than concentrating on only one category.
Some pages may bring back something you personally owned. Others may remind you of your childhood home, your school days, your friends or simply a different time in everyday life.
That is the idea behind the Memory Box Series.
Open the box and see what you remember.
Something You Might Not Expect from a Coloring Book Creator
There is one part of this story I particularly wanted to share here because this blog is where I can talk more openly about the journey behind the finished work.
I am not an illustrator.
And perhaps more surprisingly, I am not a skilled colorist either.
I actually loved drawing and coloring when I was a child. The problem was that loving something did not magically give me the talent to do it particularly well.
So yes, at one point I asked myself the obvious question:
If I cannot draw and I am not a good colorist, why am I creating coloring books?
The answer became clearer as the project developed.
Because creating a book involves more than being the person who draws or colors the final page.
What I can do is imagine what the book could be.
I can develop a theme, research it, decide what should belong in the collection, create concepts for individual illustrations, think about how they should look, and decide which details should stay or go. I can plan how simple or complex a page should be, how the illustrations should work together and what kind of feeling I want the whole book to have.
And then I can keep refining those ideas until the result gets closer to what I originally imagined.
That became my role in the process.
The more I learned about coloring, the more interested I became in creating books for people who genuinely enjoy it.
I may never be the person who can beautifully color one of my own pages and post the finished artwork online.
That is perfectly fine.
“What matters to me is creating a page that someone else wants to color.”
If that person spends an enjoyable afternoon with the book, feels relaxed after a busy day, smiles because a page reminds them of something they had forgotten, or gives the book to someone they know will enjoy it, then the idea has done what I hoped it would do.
Learning How to Make a Book from the Beginning
Having an idea for a book and actually publishing one turned out to be two very different things.
This project introduced me to an entirely new collection of skills.
I had to learn more about page layouts, print dimensions, margins, image resolution, color profiles, typography, cover design, file preparation and the technical requirements involved in publishing through Amazon KDP.
I also found myself using programs and tools that I had either never used before or had never used for publishing.
There were plenty of trials and errors along the way.
Some illustrations were revised many times. Some ideas that looked good in my head simply did not work once I saw them on a page. Sometimes I finished something and came back the next day only to notice another detail I wanted to change.
And occasionally, fixing one problem created an entirely new one.
It took much longer than simply putting a collection of pictures together and uploading them.
But I did not want to rush it.
I wanted to understand what I was doing.
So, I learned, practiced, made mistakes, corrected them, experimented with different approaches and kept developing my skills as the book developed with me.
Even after the book was published, the work continued. I spent more time preparing its presentation on Amazon and creating A+ Content so that people could see more clearly what kind of book they would receive.
There is still a great deal for me to learn, but that is also one of the things I enjoy most about beginning something new.
One Book, and Many More Ideas
Something else happened while I was creating my first book.
One idea became several.
Then several became many.
I started thinking about other themes, other collections and completely different worlds that could eventually become books of their own.
I do not want to publish books simply for the sake of adding more titles to a catalogue. I would rather take an idea that interests me, develop it properly and give each book its own character.
Some may become part of a series. Some may stand on their own.
Some might be nostalgic. Others may take readers somewhere entirely different.
For now, my coloring books will begin under Virgo • the StoryTeller, the same name that has been telling stories here.
In the near future, however, another pen name will appear with a different kind of book.
I already know who that storyteller will be.
But I think I will keep that story for another day.
This Blog Is Not Changing Direction
With a coloring book now published and more book ideas waiting to be developed, perhaps I should make one thing clear.
This is not becoming a coloring book blog.
I still want to write about places I visit, things I discover, traditions, history, culture and whatever else catches my curiosity.
There will be more travel stories.
There will be more photographs.
There will be more subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with coloring books.
And there will also be books.
To me, these things do not need to compete with one another.
Writing an article begins with an idea.
Creating a coloring book begins with an idea too.
Both require research, planning, decisions, revisions and plenty of patience before what was once only in my head becomes something another person can see. The final form may be different, but the part I enjoy most is surprisingly similar.
“Creating something from an idea and turning it into a story worth sharing.”
My First Step into Publishing
1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA is my first published book, so naturally it also represents many firsts for me.
My first experience creating a complete coloring book.
My first time preparing a book for print.
My first journey through Amazon KDP.
My first book cover.
My first ISBN.
My first published book that someone somewhere can actually order, hold in their hands and make their own.
There are things I will probably do differently in the next book because I know more now than I did when I started this one.
I hope there will always be things I can do better.
That is part of the reason I wanted to take this new path in the first place: to learn, to practice and to keep developing the skills needed to turn more of my ideas into real books.
But I am not leaving my old path behind.
The blog is still here.
The StoryTeller is still here.
There is simply one more way to tell the stories now. And this time, instead of asking you only to read the story, I am leaving some of the pages for you to finish with your own colors.
1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA: Childhood Treasures & Memories is now available on Amazon!
You can find the book and take a closer look at it here:
A Little Bonus Before You Go
While creating 1990s TACTILE NOSTALGIA, I developed more ideas and illustrations than eventually found their way into the finished book.
Some were left behind as the collection evolved. Some simply did not make it into the final pages. And, I have to admit, there may even be one or two that I somehow forgot about along the way. 😅
Rather than leaving them hidden away in my project folders, I thought it would be much nicer to give a few of them a home here.
So, if you have made it this far through the story, here is a little thank-you from me: a few bonus coloring pages for you to enjoy 🙂
PDF | 4 printable pages | 8.5 × 8.5 in | For personal use only
These pages are not included in the published book. You can save them, print them at home and color them however you like.
Notes: For personal use only. You are welcome to print these pages for your own coloring enjoyment. Please do not redistribute, resell or use the illustrations commercially.
