Hey guys! It's been like two years since I posted my last project. My bad. You don't really need to read this intro page if you don't want to, it's just some rambling. This project is super quick and simple.

Anyway, I was wanting to make a small travel paint kit and I have been really liking gouache paint and watercolor usually is the easiest and least messy paint to travel with. Painting with acrylic paint at somewhere that's not home can be messy and cleanup would take a while. I like gouache since it's an opaque watercolor, kind of like a mix between acrylic and watercolor.

I wish I could have been able to fit more than 5 colors. Maybe if I find those water bottle with the little eco-friendly caps I can make another kit with more colors. Five colors is still plenty because with the three primary colors, black, and white I can make any color so that works perfectly. For normal watercolors (not gouache) white isn't necessary because it's not opaque anyway.

This is a really quick project. Looking digging around for all of the caps and tin took 5x longer than making the kit itself. When it's done drying I will post more pictures and paint with it a little bit :) I am very pleased with how it has turned out.

Step 1: Gather Materials

1. An empty altoids tin, or something similar
2. Paint: watercolor, I used gouache
3. Water bottle caps or contact container caps, to hold the paints. For me, 5 caps fit in the tin. Flat caps will work better than round (contact container) caps, but round caps will still do the trick.
4. Hot glue or super glue
5. Toothpicks, one for each color
6. Water, pipette (optional)

Step 2: Glue Caps In

Make sure the altoids tin is clean, rinse it out and dry it if you need to.

Plug in the hot glue gun and wait for it to warm up. Arrange the caps in the tin to make sure they fit, then take them out. Then, once the glue gun is hot, put a dab/circle of glue on the back of a cap and place it in the tin. Repeat for each cap.

Step 3: Put Paint In

1. Chose the colors you want in the kit
2. Squeeze a bit into a cap
3. Pour/pipette a little bit of water in with the paint
4. Mix water and paint in the cap with a toothpick until it is smooth and fills the cap nicely
5. Repeat for each cap/color
6. Wait for the paint to dry

Done!