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Art and Craft Supplies
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I just love buying arts and crafts supplies for my children! It helps develop their creativity, makes them curious about the world around them and best of all, is great fun to do! If you are just starting out enjoying arts and crafts with your little one then hopefully my suggested products below will give you ideas and inspiration on what might be suitable for your child and their needs.
I believe that storage is also really important when it comes to your arts and craft supplies as it can help you stay organised and segment like-for-like crafts together, so I mention the storage solutions I use for our art and craft supplies below as well.
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*If you click on the images you will be taken to the Amazon website to learn more about the product and see the latest pricing.
Let’s start with storage first. Here is the Really Useful Drawer Tower which comes with 8 drawers which as a guide, can fit A4 paper in nicely. Now I use this tower to store most of our craft supplies, but also for play-doh and play-doh tools. I have drawers for coloured paper as well as for small pots with tiny craft supplies in such as pom-poms, pipe cleaners, plastic eyes and feathers. We have a drawer for sticker books and stencil books as well as a separate drawer for colouring books.
This tower is one of the best things I’ve purchased for my children’s arts supplies. I love that it is light-weight and even comes with wheels for easy movement.
I love the bright colours too as it also helps my children know what items are in what drawers! The drawers are easy to slide open for my children and I like that the colours are semi-transparent. This rainbow Really Useful Drawer Tower comes highly recommended!
*Click the picture or here to view it on the amazon website.
In addition to the tower above, I also have a variation of this wide storage unit. We use this for our larger craft supplies such as paints, our educational books and kinetic sand. I also store wide A3 colouring pads in here that would otherwise not fit anywhere!
I love having a drawer that is big enough for all our paints, painting palettes, paint brushes and aprons as it just makes getting everything out and tidying up that much quicker and easier! I would highly recommend a wide tower such as this if you don’t necessarily have much cupboard space for arts and crafts materials as it really will solve your storage needs.
*Click here or the picture to view it on the amazon website.
Whilst on the subject of storage for your children’s crafts, I wanted to also mention that having ‘activity trays‘ is a great idea to contain the fun and mess when your children are playing. It also makes for easy tidying away at meal times!
Now let’s look at the exciting supplies you can use for creative projects at home with your children. The most basic of which being crayons, colouring pens, colouring pencils and paper.
Jumbo crayons are great as ‘first’ crayons as they are wide and easy to grip. Little hands are more likely to snap the thinner crayons so going jumbo is a win and saves money on crayons in those early days.
*Click here or on the picture to view on amazon.
Ages 3 and up can more likely handle these thinner crayons with less breakage!
However, I’m sure you’ll still find wrappers get peeled off for fun (anyone else’s children enjoy doing this?!) but I highly recommend Crayola as a brand as you know you are getting a quality crayon with excellent colour payoff. (Some cheaper crayons have a more translucent, waxy, lighter colour so I highly recommend considering these Crayola ones.
*Click here or on the picture to view on amazon.
Great for on-the-go, travelling or car journeys, these twistable crayons are superb! Silky in texture, they are great for blending, mixing and creating lots of light and shade in your child’s art work. (You may even find yourself having a go with them too!) In addition, they are washable and have a jumbo grip design so great for little hands to hold as well.
*Click here or on the picture to view on amazon.
These jumbo pens (above) are fantastic. Not only do they have sturdy, pressure-resistant tips, they also have ventilated caps and use a great, water-based ink which washes out of most textiles easily.
*Click here or on the picture to view on amazon.
We also use these Crayola Washable Marker Pens too. I love the chunky tips and the vibrant colour selection. Highly recommended.
Colouring paper is a must, not only for drawing on but for making cards, cutting up shapes and patterns and any paper crafts.
We love using neon paper too, it is great for creating colour contrast with text on, for memory games and so much more!
Once your child is confident with crayons, colouring pencils and then colouring pens, you can progress to using paints. Painting will bring about more mess and needs slightly more supervision! I highly recommend using a painting palette to help portion control the amount of paint given. We also use these pots with no-spill lids!
My children just love these colourful paint sticks (above). They glide smoothly over the paper and can be easily twisted up to get to more of the colour.
Chunky and easy to grip, these are almost ‘mess-free’ painting as you don’t have palettes, paint brushes and aprons to clean up afterwards! They have so far lasted for ages and can be useful when travelling or when out-and-about for a quick colouring activity.
These bath letters and numbers have been a fantastic addition to my children’s learning activities. Not only can you use them in the bath to encourage spelling words and finding letters, you can use them in sensory trays too. It has been one of the most useful craft items I have bought my children that is not only fun and tactile, but educational as well. I would highly recommend getting a set of letters and numbers for your child to play with and learn from!
My children love jumbo chalks! They are fantastic for creative play outside and for drawing pictures on the ground and walls! The jumbo ones definitely last much longer than the thinner chalks that you can purchase.
I highly recommend using these jumbo chalks for easy-grip chalking fun!
Use pom-poms for crafts, as eyes and noses, for numeracy and counting or even for sensory trays! Always keep out of reach of children under three years.
My daughter especially loves her kinetic sand kit! It provides hours of fun and sensory play, encouraging those fine motor skills and creativity!
Kinetic sand is different to normal play sand because instead of being coated with water like normal sand, it is instead coated with silicone oil. This is what makes the particles stick together so it is far more mouldable and versatile for creative play!
These Baker Ross Pipe Cleaners are a great quality item for crafts, making shapes and animals and for twisting and twirling into lots of shapes!
For making craft animals and people come alive, this wobbly eyes set is a must-have in my opinion!
My children love adding the colourful eyes to their toilet roll figures, to drawings and especially on cards for family and friends.
I love that this set is self-adhesive so is mess and glue-free. In addition, it comes in a very handy storage box to help keep the different colours and sizes of eyes organised and separate.
*Remember to always store smaller craft items out of the reach of babies and small children.
These colourful lollipop sticks have so many uses! From playing matching letter and number games to using them as arms for figures, your children will find lots of uses for these. My daughter loves sticking the lollipop sticks (and matchsticks) into play-doh and combining this with the wobbly eyes to make play-doh monsters!
In a similar vein to the lollipop sticks (above), coloured match sticks are also great fun for sensory trays and building activities. Use them as arms for little figures and for exploring textures and creating figures with play-doh and kinetic sand!
Once your child starts exploring cutting paper, it can be a great idea to get them their very own pair of craft scissors. Not only will these be a lighter weight for them to hold with smaller holes for them to grip, they will also often come with a safety latch or case.
My children just love adding washi tapes to their pictures! It is a light-weight paper style tape that children can easily tear themselves without the need for scissors.
They come in lots of bright, colourful designs and are a lovely craft box addition for your child.
I regularly purchase washi tapes for my daughter and would highly recommend these, especially if you are looking for a mess-free way to encourage creativity!
Water beads are fantastic for sensory trays and crafts. Use them in shaving foam, in sensory bottles and even in plant pots and vases for plants! Water beads need to be soaked in water to grow in size so do remember this when purchasing them as they look a lot smaller before water is added!
You can even dehydrate them (allowing them to dry out) and re-hydrate (adding water to them again) to activate them.
Water beads are 100% biodegradable and made from non-toxic and environmentally-friendly materials.
I hope that these ideas above have given you some creative inspiration for crafts to enjoy with your children at home!
*Click the pictures to learn more about each product on Amazon.
