When it comes to stocking up on art/craft supplies I like to shop at Aldi, Daiso and a host of $2 shops. You don’t need to spend up big and it doesn’t take long to build up a good collection of bits and bobs. Those large plastic buckets (you probably already use in the laundry or the spare room) are great for storage and it makes it easy to pack it all away until the next craft session.

I don’t know about you but I LOVE Aldi and mainly for the ‘middle aisle’ stuff than anything else. Every few weeks they have craft-based items that are really affordable, like craft scissors, scrapbooking paper, fun-shaped hole punches and more.

You can’t go past the good old $2 shops, they are a brilliant resource and the bigger ones often have a lot of art/craft stuff aimed at kids. My latest picks were some fluoro dot stickers, watercolour paints, art journals, furry pipe cleaners and oil pastels. I can’t wait to get our hands dirty with it all!

Daiso is another great choice, where everything in the store is $2.80 (based on the same concept as the 100 Yen stores in Japan). I can easily get lost in there amongst all the colourful and stylish packaging.

So, here’s my top 10 items for building up a good craft box:

1. Coloured paper
2. Craft scissors (various shapes like zig-zag, scalloped edges etc)
3. Plain sketch pads and scrap books
4. Glue (normal + glitter)
5. Stickers (dots, animals, flowers – the list is endless)
6. Pipe cleaners
7. MT/washi tape (you can find this at Daiso, Typo and online from Etsy)
8. Feathers
9. Scrapbooking paper (any patterned paper will do, Daiso has an amazing collection of origami paper which we use for making collages)
10. A good splash mat to cover your table (which you can pick up and dump the mess straight in the bin once your little ones are finished making their creations).

Happy collecting!