The Crafter’s Kit

Whether you’re a novice crafter or an experienced craftsman/woman, there’s something you should always have on hand: your own crafter’s kit. You never know when the latest magazine, TV show, or child’s request is going to inspire some amazing project to be born—and having everything you need already within reach will make it easier to start (and not “postpone” the creation until you forget it or lose interest).

Here are a few things that you may want to assemble in your own crafter’s kit. We have ours in a small three-drawer cabinet, but that’s because we have a lot of stuff. (In fact, it doesn’t all fit in the cabinet!) You can make yours out of a simple shoebox, appliance box, or any other container that you’ve got on hand. You may even want to decorate it with stickers, glitter, glued on objects or drawings. (We do this with our holiday decoration storage boxes, too—it’s lots of fun!)

• Scissors. And though they may be a little on the expensive side, a good pair is a great investment. My mother swears by Fiskers, but I’m deeply in love with my Scotch pair.
• Adhesive. You may want a combination—or all—of the following: glue sticks, rubber cement, tacky glue, all-purpose glue, hot glue, and different kinds of tape. If you had to choose only one, I’d wholly vouch for tacky glue, though if you have little ones glue sticks may be best.
• Background Materials. This can include butcher paper, construction paper, bond paper, cardstock and even printer paper. Recycled paper is easy to come by these days, and you can even make your own paper by recycling your own. We always use the back of our paper when we can—especially if we’re using it to practice drawing shapes!
• Mediums. This doesn’t mean psychics—it means the stuff you’ll use to create your art. This might be various kinds of paint—such as tempera, watercolor, acrylic, or finger paints—as well as markers, colored pencils, crayons, clay, various ink pens, pencils, oil pastels, and other creative mediums. (Note—I used to paint faces, and acrylic paint will work in a pinch for face-painting. It dries pretty quickly, washes off well with soap and water, and works for most skin tones.)
• Embellishments.  You may want to add beads, feathers, felt, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, ribbon, string, lace, yarn and a variety of other materials to many different projects. Any of these—as well as anything you normally like to use—would be great in a pinch for all sorts of creative endeavors.

And above all, never forget the value of everyday objects! We’ve made plenty of creations using rocks, grass, flowers, noodles, and other things that weren’t originally meant for craft use. Be creative!