I have a preschool aged child. We do a lot of crafts and projects and I've been building up my storage of craft supplies. I have things like glue, glue sticks, construction paper, pipe cleaners, pom pom balls, googly eyes, paint, markers, crayons, tissue paper etc etc I used to have a one hole punch but I broke it LOL So what are your must haves on your craft supply list? Need ideas for more stuff that I'm missing.
For christmas a few years ago, I had my mom give my son a tape bucket. She thought I was so weird, but it was perfect and lasted a whole year. Painter's tape, scotch tape, masking tape. This past year ds got a ream of printer paper for Christmas. It resolves him always wanting my plain paper. Now, he has his own and he is free to use as much as he wants. Kid scissors are another great one. We started out with the plastic ones from a school supply store, and then moved on to metal ones. It worked out perfectly because by the time the plastic ones were breaking and no longer working, he was mature enough for the metal ones.
Oooh, another fun summer activity is to use paint brushes (the foam type ones work best) and "paint" outside on the sidewalk. You just dip the brushes in water and they paint away. As they work, it dries out giving more work space.
a tape bucket? how does that work exactly? my daughter loves playing with tape lol. The painting on the sidewalk is a great idea thanks for that tip
My mom just bought a plastic basket that has a handle and bought various rolls of tape to load it with. That became my son's tape and he could use as much as he wanted, when he wanted. He loved it and some rolls didn't make it a week, and others have lasted a year and a half with random use when he feels like it. The great thing was that I did not feel like MY tape was being wasted when he felt like wrapping a GI Joe from head to toe in tape or creating a "web" with the stuff. :lol: He knew that when it was gone, it was gone, and it has been great. For the most part, we have kept all of the tape with the same bucket (basket). When I find a random roll of his tape, I toss it in his bucket. It worked out perfect as a Christmas gift (or even a birthday) because it was a gift that was cherished without being a toy.
We have given our oldest grandson black tape for gifts before, he loved it and there was never enough! lol
I like to pick up those foam things.. like the stickers and such when they are on clearance, also those little ceramic critters for them to paint and wood cut outs too. Really their favorite things are our basket of scrap paper (no paper goes straight to the garbage here if it has a blank side!), and a big can of crayons. They like markers too, BUT I don't like the littlest one writing on himself, so for now they are away again..lol
Oh that's brilliant. I don't know why I never thought to pick up those little ceramic and wooden characters. I loved those when I was a kid and still have some of the things I painted I can't believe I never thought to get DD something like that to paint and have fun with and they are relatively inexpensive too yeah they have a bunch of the foam stuff at the dollar store I need to get more... we are almost out. They have the big sheets and smaller sheets and then shapes stickers. need to stock up. A basket for scrap paper... that's brilliant also lol. I've just been piling it up and this one shelf until it drives me CRAZY and then I just toss it before I have a fit lol. A basket is such an easy solution lol seriously this is why I started this thread the simplest ideas are the greatest help. I'm always looking for more variety in things to do
Oh, one more favorite at our house. Fill the tub with a little water, put shaving cream into muffin tins and color it with a little food coloring. Provide paint brushes and throw them in the tub for a little tub art time. I can get my house vacuumed with this activity and the older ones love it too, so he's never unattended in there
* QTips for making dots with paint on paper * Misc magazines to cut out pictures for collages * Wooden things to paint: car, animal, princess shapes and small birdhouses and treasure chests. * Stickers (as mentioned before) One thing I used to do with my pre-schoolers was get a heavy duty freezer bag and squirt white shaving cream in it and add food coloring, then zip and seal with tape. Its lots of fun to squish and mix the cream and paint together.
Don't forget soap carving, that is one of my sons favorite things to do. He always smells so good after.
Now we have a bunch of ink pads and rubber stamps. Tons and tons of stickers. I always check them out at Hobby lobby and Michaels when I go, I tend to find many on clearance. Beads(we just gave tons of what I had away since they seem to multiply in the closet), pipe cleaners, foam sheets (also get tacky glue for this and pom poms, it works better than reg glue), glitter glue works better for us than glitter (glitter is just too messy), craft sand (my son makes a neat picture out of glue lines and then puts colored sand over it), shaped scissors , strips of magnetic tape , different mediums (crayon, markers, pastels, oil pastels, paints (oil, water, poster, etc), pencils, charcoal, etc. The list can go on forever. Oh, also keep bits and pieces of broken crayons so you can put them between wax paper sheets and iron to melt to make sun catchers.
We ALWAYS have an assortment of craft sticks here. Both of my boys (ages 11 and 6) love to see what they can build. We have the traditional "popsicle stick" sized ones, jumbo ones, mini ones, colored ones...whatever we can find. We pick them up at a constant rate when they are on sale at Hobby Lobby, lol. I have pen holders, paper clip holders, picture frames...the youngest even tried to make a mouse pad out of sticks. Didn't work so well as a mouse pad, but I use it as a "display plate" for whatever he wants to put on my desk at that moment. The oldest, he makes more elaborate things, like houses and boats...and catapults. Catapults of ALL sizes, lol.
I love the ideas given here. I also have a very crafty little one. I get copy paper at the beginning of the school year. It is very cheap during that time. Staples seems to be the best price. My ds used black tape to make masks. You could use any color.
Thanks for all the great ideas these are wonderful and thanks for the tip about copy paper at the beginning of the school year
