CRAFT TOOLS AND CRAFT MATERIALS

Craft tools and supplies vary for the four main types of crafts.

FASHION, TEXTILE, PAPER and DECORATIVE CRAFTS all require different crafting supplies.

The craft tools and materials below are mainly for PAPER CRAFTS and some DECORATIVE CRAFTS - the two most common craft types.

Craft tools for kids, craft tools for beginners, essential craft tools

There are MANY different types of paper and decorative crafts, we are introduced to the basic paper and decorative crafts in preschool when we do things like hand prints, 3D animals, cards for mom and dad and so forth, then we advance to more grown up versions!

Craft materials start with what we call a support, it can be (ex: paper, canvas, a mirror, old door) anything with a solid surface that will allow you to get creative and use it as a base. Followed by texture mediums, paints, solvents, special additions, finishes and sealers.
Craft Tools are used to apply texture mediums & paints to the support and can include almost anything from fingers to the most expensive sponges and brushes.

View our 3 top lists of crafting tools and materials below:

The essential list of basic craft items for kids and beginners.
A more advanced list of tools and materials for the next level of crafting.
An unusual list of items in and around your home that you might not have considered for crafting!

1. A List Of Basic Craft Tools and Supplies For Kids and Beginner Projects

Even the most advanced crafting enthusiasts use them regularly!

* Tip: You can highlight the list with your mouse by holding the left click and scrolling down and then print the lists you need by clicking on the printer icon on the far left of this screen below the social media icons.

**You can find all the products we use on a regular regular basis in our recommendation list here, and by clicking in the top right corner of each product you will be able to read what we use it for!

This list below will help you pick out the most important basic items first while wandering through our extensive recommendation list.

Craft Paper - Different Types - White, Black, Bright Colored and Tissue Paper

Card Stock - Thick and thin - choose your favorite colors, corrugated card board comes in handy too.

Soft pencil - Of which the markings can easily be erased

Eraser - Often overlooked until you need one.

Sharpener - Another item often overlooked.

Sticky or masking tape - To secure projects while working, you only learn once you've had a wet (glued or painted) project end up face down on the floor!

Glue Stick - A good quality.

Paper Craft Glue Pen - A strong glue to hold all paper bits in place and the very fine tips allow you to glue the most delicate pieces precisely.

Strong Glue - A good quality that is fast drying and dries colorless or a hot glue gun which I use myself (opt for one that have a stand).

Paint - I prefer acrylic and water color. The paint pens in our recommendation list is a super fun item for rock art.

Color Mediums - These can be coloring pencils, crayons, pastels which ever you prefer working with.

Scissors - Large paper scissors and small embroidery scissors. I don't embroider but I use this for super fine cuts in paper crafts when I don't have a cutting mat and a craft cutting knife available.

Paint Brushes - For painting and to dust off excess dry crafting goodies like glitter and distress powders which are used for an aged look.

Dual Tip Markers - These are great for coloring, drawing, blending, calligraphy, the set in our recommendation list (the link is at the top) has 60 awesome colors in a beautiful container and they truly are amazing to work with.

Paper Punch - I prefer the hand held, one hole paper punch for precision punching so that you can see exactly where the hole will be. I use this for making tags, party printable hats, masks and for holes in craft boxes if I want to tie my boxes or bags with ribbon or bakers twine.

Self Healing Cutting Mat - This is an absolute necessity if you use a craft knife or rotary cutter. A good quality craft knife will go a long way and very helpful to cut out inside patterns where it is difficult to reach with a pair of scissors.

Rulers - Short and long rulers. I have one 12 inch steel ruler that is as old as the mountains and it still works perfectly. A steel ruler won't get nasty humps and bumps in and it was one of the best items I ever bought. The weight also helps to hold paper down firmly, especially when cutting with a craft knife.

Bone Scorer - When you score fold lines with a bone scorer before folding, it gives your projects a lovely rounded professional look. I use mine a lot when making cards, thank you notes, packaging and more.

Circle Punch - A 2" (inch) circle punch is a great item to have for cupcake toppers, card making, general round cut-outs and tags. I also have a .75" for Christmas time when I punch out colorful circles from pretty paper to stick onto Hershey Kisses. I place these in small organza bags as small gifts or as stocking fillers.

Kitchen Paper Roll - Or Facial Tissues and Cotton Buds are great for spills and corrections.

You can find our follow up craft tool lists 2. Advanced and 3. Unusual here.

BUT HEY WAIT BEFORE YOU GO! THERE'S MORE GREAT IDEAS BELOW!

Design programs I love to use that compliment my craft tools:

Canva - This program makes using my transparent overlay templates a breeze. You can find my templates here and view my easy tutorial showing how I use Canva here.

PicMonkey - A firm favorite for removing backgrounds behind images and photos, easily add drop shadows to images and an overall superb photo editing tool for all those photos you thought were a mess and can't be saved. Add amazing effects and overlays to special pictures and photos. Fantastic to make personalized photo invitations, Christmas cards, Halloween Invites and so, so much more. The beautiful images in this post were all created with this program. Find out more here.

Adobe DC - The absolute king of PDF files. Edit PDF files on the fly! I can not function without this one! This is the program designers use to create the lovely editable printable files you download and open with Adobe Reader.

Adobe Photoshop - Photoshop is THE photo editor, yet I do not use it for that, I mainly use it for scrap booking and to design paper craft templates and sometimes digital paper templates. Also for filling shapes with patterns easily.

Adobe Illustrator - Clip art is my other downfall and Illustrator fills this need completely. I love how I have access to so many resources that I otherwise could not open to edit or create.

Silhouette Studio Designer - I use it with my Silhouette Cameo (one of my favorite craft tools) but before I got my Cameo and Adobe Suite I often used the free edition of Silhouette Studio for quite a number of tasks like filling shapes with patterns, tracing and more. The downfall was that the free edition had a lot of hick-ups reading SVG files that I wanted to use. You do need the upgraded version of Designer or Designer Plus to get the full power of this program. Also, the free edition only allows you to print to PDF and does not allow you to save your files as normal image files like JPG or PNG.

Make your own stencils

Stencils are another one of my favorite craft tools! Stencils with motives are handy items and available in any shape, size and pattern to decorate cards, walls, personal belongings and craft work with. Although fairly cheap and available from most art & craft stores, they are simple to make out of cardboard or old X-rays. All you need is a stencil pattern (freely available on the internet), card board or old X-ray (this is our favorite!), cutting mat or old magazine, a craft knife, and a photo copier if you wish to increase or decrease the size of the stencil pattern. Copy or trace the pattern onto the old X-ray, cut the motive out and you have your own high-quality stencil.

Shop for stencil cutting tools

Stencil Cutting Tools

- If you don't have a steady hand for cutting stencils, don't despair there are many tools to help you out!

Shop for stencils:

Stencil Mania

* Please note that there are different types of stencils for painting, glass, embossing, airbrushing, food - like cakes and more. So be sure to search for the type of stencil you require.

FREE CRAFT TIP 1: Always be on the lookout for things you may find in nature and in and around the home that you can use for crafts - Pebbles, seashells, bright colored autumn leaves, flowers, shiny chocolate papers, gift wrapping etc.

FREE CRAFT TIP 2: Grannies and Moms, craft tools are a lovely gift for kids of all ages and also wonderful to have when you spend quality time with your grandchildren or kids!

FREE CRAFT TIP 3: Those handy little rollers with patterns on and the shapes you get with kids play dough sets are also great for crafting - use them to draw shapes and print backgrounds with water based paints!

Organize your craft tools

View: MAKE A CRAFT TOOLBOX FOR KIDS!

If you purchase a lot of paper and cardboard at once, you might want to make an additional bigger box (the boxes Boots come in!) are ideal to store these in! Otherwise you can store them in separate plastic folders in a file which can also be decorated to match the craft box! The craft toolbox is not ONLY for kids - it can be decorated for teens and adults alike.

To see how we use all of the above craft tools and materials and to acquire some basic skills and learn some techniques view our craft collection:

EASY CRAFTS FOR KIDS! All with complete instructions! Perfect for all BEGINNERS whether you are a KID or not.

Want to learn a new exciting craft? Wondering what to buy to get started? Don't forget to visit our CRAFT KITS section. Pick and choose from a wide variety of crafts, try them out.

1 very cool craft item + a free download

A VERY COOL ITEM TO ADD TO YOUR CRAFT SUPPLY LIST

MOD PODGE - GLOW IN THE DARK

This product adds a glow-in-the-dark effect to any craft project! Mod Podge is 40 years old, but this classic glue still has its cool! The latest fun formula will add glowing effects to Halloween, science fair, children's décor and other projects. Multiple coats create a stronger glow. Expose decoupage projects to a light source to recharge the glow effect. Quick-drying formula allows for multiple coat build up and projects dry to a glowing finish. Cleans up easily with soap and water. Certified AP non-toxic and water based.
Click on Link Below for the full range.

The MOD PODGE range includes over 100 fantastic craft supplies, view and shop the entire MOD PODGE RANGE here! This product is basically used to seal any type of art work, to protect it, make it durable and strong. It is painted on over the surface you want to protect, has a whitish color and then dries clear.

A super cool e-book that shows you the application of every Mod Podge product on the market with beautiful examples. There is an application for every type of surface thinkable and a great variety of finishes that will make your projects pop. Get your free download now.

A super cool e-book that shows you the application of every Mod Podge product on the market with beautiful examples. There is an application for every type of surface protection thinkable. Get your free download now.

(With special permission from Plaid E-Books)

MORE HANDY FREE TOOLS

Geometric Shapes To Print - Here you will find 25 printable booklets with 2D and 3D geometric shapes, patterns and other interesting things in that will fill your crafting mind with ideas.

Geometric Shapes - Get ideas! See how basic 2D geometric shapes are used in designs the world over, to create interesting sequences and works of art. Get inspiration from the 3D geometric shapes collection for ideas to create stamps, stencils and loads of other crafts!

EMBOSSING, GIFT WRAPPING, POTATO STAMPING and ERASER STAMPING are all great crafts to use the above geometric shapes and printable pages for.