Video summary
The video creator shares her excitement about refining her travel art kits in preparation for increased future travel following her husband's retirement. While she acknowledges the appeal of commercial options like a specific kit from Light Wish that she has added to her wish list, she decides to explore a more budget-friendly and personalized approach by thrifting. She successfully finds a nearly new planner cover from a culinary school student at a thrift store for just a few dollars, which features a fully functional zipper. For the creator, this full-zip closure is essential because it prevents supplies from spilling out while her bag is stored under an airplane seat, a significant anxiety point when traveling by air.
To transform the thrifted planner into a custom watercolor kit, she utilizes her existing stash of Winsor & Newton travel palettes and other paints, carefully arranging them to fit within the cover's constraints. She ingeniously repurposes a plastic cutting board from Dollar Tree as a template to punch holes for inserting paper, securing the palette inside with 3M adhesive that her husband used for car emblems. The kit is further customized with watercolor paper cut to size, ensuring the textured side faces up for painting, along with laminated swatch sheets demonstrating various shading techniques and a selection of tested pens and water brushes. She also includes convenient water brushes with built-in reservoirs to eliminate the need for carrying a separate cup of water.
After experimenting with the layout, including adding extra paper and a small sketchbook from a previous trip to Italy, she realizes that the kit is slightly too full when all items are included. Through trial and error, she removes some excess pens and papers to ensure the bag closes securely without feeling overly tight, ultimately deciding to keep a few reference sheets in the back pocket while storing other supplies in her main drawer for future use. She notes that while carrying a water cup is not her preference, having a rag or napkin for cleaning brushes remains a necessary addition to any watercolor kit.
In conclusion, the creator validates both purchasing pre-made kits and creating custom ones from thrifted items as excellent strategies for travelers on a budget. She encourages viewers to visit thrift stores like Goodwill to find affordable planner covers that can be personalized with their own favorite art supplies. Beyond the practical assembly of the kit, she reminds her audience to take time to do something nice for themselves, emphasizing that artists deserve self-care even while preparing for adventures. The project serves as a testament to resourcefulness, proving that one does not need to spend a lot of money to create a functional and secure travel art kit tailored to their specific needs.
Read the full video transcript
Hello everybody. All right. So,
if you've been watching my channel for a
while, you know I have a thing for
making bags, making travel art kits,
and
my husband's retiring soon, which means
we're going to be doing a lot more
traveling. And I really want to
fine-tune my travel kits.
So,
I have a drawer full of
um travel stuff
um in this desk. And um
in the coming weeks and months, I'm
going to probably be going through some
of it. And I've put a lot of kits
together that I love, but they don't all
work for me. So, I may be
um purging some things. So, stay tuned.
Um how exactly? No idea yet. All right.
So, recently I was watching a video and
I saw this travel art kit from a company
called Light Wish. And I will put a link
down below um to their um the one that
intrigues me the most. Um and
um I will say that I have added it to my
Christmas my gift list my wish list
um on Amazon.
Anyway, that being said, I did think I
you know, I wonder if I could go
thrifting for like a planner cover,
um spend like three bucks, four bucks,
and um make something of my own with
what I have.
We've done that. So,
move some stuff over here that's off
camera.
>> [clears throat]
>> So, I went thrifting not long ago, and I
found
this
little planner.
Uh the brand name is Plan Ahead. Um it
was from a um culinary school student.
Um
because her card was still inside. I've
taken it taken it out now. Um it had all
the pages in it. Um like it wasn't used
much if at all. Uh or maybe she used it,
but she took her personal stuff out. And
so, these I'm not going to use, so
they're trash. I did save the cardboard
backer because it has the spacing for
the holes to punch holes for paper to
put in here um cuz I don't have a punch
that
is that size. And I don't know what size
this is, by the way. Um
but this ruler is 6 in long.
So, maybe 5 by 7 when it's closed.
Um anyway, if somebody knows, let me
know. It also over here has this part
that flips out, and there's all of these
elastic pockets uh bands in here,
perfect for pens and pencils and
watercolor brushes.
Um
so, I thought this would work, and it
zips shut all the way, which I like. So,
I've taken quite a few things tried
quite a few things as far as travel art
kits are concerned, whether it's
needlework or painting or whatever, um
when I'm traveling, especially flying,
and I've discovered I do not like
um things that don't zip all the way
shut because I get too worried that
I'm going to be sitting there on the
plane somewhere, my stuff's going to be
stuffed under the seat in front of me,
and because it's not shut all the way,
and it can't shut all the way, things
are going to fall out and get lost.
>> [sighs]
>> So, anyway, that's may just be me, but
yeah. Okay, so, that being said, I love
the zipper.
Okay, so the next thing if you look at
the light wish listing is they have a
sort of watercolor kit that fits in the
binder and you basically just kind of
turn it this way, you flip open the
watercolor, you have your paints right
here, your paper's up here and you just
sketch and paint. Or you can of course
take the paint the paper out.
I thought that was such a great idea.
Okay, so I went through my stuff
and I like Winsor & Newton
um these small um 12 pan um travel
palette cotton and travel palettes. I
have quite a few of them. Um they are
I do have smaller palettes, but I like
this size and I like the size of the
pans. So, I went through my stash of
stuff
and we have this. So,
it does close, although these pans are
not Winsor & Newton paints, these are
other paints that I had and um they do
kind of fit in here,
but they stick up a bit, but that's
fine. I have a lot of watercolor paints.
I didn't want to buy anything new.
I wanted to use what I had. So, the
plastic is a piece of plastic cutting
board from Dollar Tree that I used our
cardboard template to line up the holes
and punch holes in and then those that
don't know, my husband's a car guy and
he was recently adding some emblems to
his hot rod and
through him I discovered this 3M plastic
and emblem adhesive.
This stuff is
cool. Stinky and toxic, but cool. And I
used it to glue the palette to here.
You got to trust me when this sucker's
not going anywhere and this stuff is
waterproof.
So, I can open this
and I can put that there.
And then
Now my mixing
I've got my paints.
Theoretically, we've got paper, right?
Okay.
Then I went through my paper stash.
And I decided to cut
some paper.
And use the same piece of cardboard to
punch holes in it. Now, I am this is um
cold press. One side is smooth, one side
is textured. I'm going to have the
textured side facing the watercolor
palette because that's the side I would
be painting [clears throat] on.
And theoretically speaking, I would be
doing it this way. So, I want this to be
the textured side.
That's cool.
I have a few extra pieces of paper I
want to include
if we can.
I have some
random little pieces of I don't even
know where some of this came from.
Little pieces of watercolor paper.
There's this bamboo mixed media pad and
a couple of mini sketchbooks.
Okay. And then this is the swatch for
the colors.
I've got some
I laminated these a long time ago. These
are from
somebody else's tutorial that I I took.
It doesn't say where. Oh, it says rapid
fire art at the bottom.
Um and these are different shading
techniques or different sketching
techniques to create different textures
or colors with just your plain black
pen. Uh do you want to include those?
And then I have a probably too big
selection of pens and water brushes.
So, we are going to
decide what we want here.
And we're going to make it happen.
>> [snorts]
>> Just decided I've had some of these pens
a long time. I should probably make sure
they actually write first before I put
them in here.
One of them did not, so
that one's
dead.
How about this one?
That one works.
Mhm, no.
Okay, so the green one works, but I'm
not I'm going to take the black. These
other ones are kind of dried out. I'm
also going to grab
an old standby, a Bic Crystal. So, I
think these two.
Okay.
He takes a white
um
gel pen. I have a love-hate relationship
with them. This one does work, so we
will put it in here for the moment.
There is this little like clip in here.
I'm I'm not sure that's going to end up
staying, but for now we'll just kind of
push it out of the way.
I have a small um sprayer.
Water sprayer, which I like to include.
We've got
Making sure it's going to still close.
Okay, we've got some uh selection of
I like to use these brushes because the
water
is in the handle and
I'm never going to use that one. Uh
I'll take these three.
The water is in the handle and they're
convenient, especially when you're
traveling. I don't have to
walk around with a cup of water.
So, there's that.
Okay.
Um we do have this um
swatch sheet, which I kind of want to
clip to here.
Let me go get a cle- mini binder clip.
That solved that problem.
We have some extra paper.
Which we're going to just put there
and hope that that will still close.
Yeah.
And there's a pocket on the outside.
I think that's too much.
It feels really tight.
Okay.
What if we
What if we reverse that? Oops.
Oop.
Okay.
Yeah.
I have this little mini sketchbook that
I already started um when I was in
Italy.
So, I kind of want to have this in here
somewhere.
How cute is that? It's so tiny.
Nope.
There we go.
That works.
These can go back. Oh, I forgot about
these.
All right.
These can go in the back. They're just
for reference. They can go back here.
>> [snorts]
>> Now, you could not put paper here and
just carry this and a sketchbook. And
this is sort of your tool bag.
But, there you go.
All right, I like that.
These pens have to go away. These pens
have papers have to go away.
And
these
go back down here. So, this is my drawer
of travel stuff.
Travel supplies, glue. This is my mini
gel plate. All the things.
Some of which I will also be bringing on
the next trip.
My travel glue, all my things.
I do have a water cup, but I don't It's
not my thing. It may be something that
goes away.
Okay.
So, I like this and it cost me about
five bucks.
>> [laughter]
>> So,
I think it's a good idea. A good idea
for a travel art kit. And there's if you
go thrifting or you go to the
you know, Goodwill or whatever, there's
always a million of these planners there
in the on the shelves.
And um they're usually not expensive. Um
so,
yes, you can order one from Lightwish,
and I think it's a great idea.
Um but um making your own out of what
you have is not a bad idea, either.
So, anyway, hope it gives you some
ideas. And
uh
happy traveling with your
um
See something else I forgot. With your
art supplies.
Uh
You know, if you're going to carry
watercolors, you need to have
a rag or a napkin or something.
Okay. Anyway, hope it gives you some
ideas of what you can do. If you have
questions, comments, or concerns, do
leave them down below. And uh don't
forget to do the most important thing.
Go out and do something nice for
yourself, cuz you deserve it. I'll see
you later. Bye, guys.
>> Mhm.