Cardboard Creations Master Supply List

This supply list is all you need to make everything in my book, Cardboard Creations (not including the recycled stuff). The art supplies are very basic, you may have most of these already. The craft supplies are a little more specialized. If you are on a tight budget, just pick a few. You can substitute any of them with other things you have on hand.

Cardboard Creations // ebook by Barbara Rucci

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Painting & Drawing

~ Tempera paint: Crayola for basic white, yellow, red, blue, purple (a hard color to mix). You can buy their other colors, too. Crayola is a perfectly good brand and usually cheap. I always mix white with the darker colors to lighten them up and to make them more opaque. // Sax Versatemp paints are awesome. They are thick and have interesting colors. It’s hard to find them in single bottles on Amazon, but you can find this cool set of metallic colors, and this set of pearlescent colors. Their set of fluorescent colors is awesome, too, but you can find cheaper fluorescents – just not as thick. // We use pink fluorescent the most, and I love this one from Sargent. Again, I usually mix it with a bit of white. // Finally, Ras and Chromatemp are also really nice, thick tempera paints with fabulous colors. Most of my paints are from those two brands, and I don’t buy them online. Instead, I find them at my local art store. Amazon carries them but they are much more expensive than at my art store.

~ Watercolor: OOLY has lots of colors, they are a dry paint so need lots of water to get a nice, rich color. // Crayola is the least expensive, and their pods are moist so you only need a little water. Grace for babies and toddlers. // Sax fluorescent tempera cakes are dry and need lots of water to get a deep, rich color. The kids love these.

~ Liquid watercolor: Colorations colors are lighter so therefore I don’t usually need to add water. // Blick colors are stronger so I usually use half paint half water. These paints last longer, but the tops are annoyingly leaky. I find that if you take the whole top off and just pour it works better. I like using Blick when making playdough and slime because I only need a few drops. // Before I even knew there was such a thing as liquid watercolor, I used to make my own by adding water to tube paints (like acrylics or tube watercolor). You can also use food coloring mixed with water if you can’t find liquid watercolor where you live.

~ Paint brushes: My favorite plastic handle paintbrushes are from Royal. I buy the size 8 and 6. On Amazon you can only buy them in sets, so look for them at your art store if you don’t want that many. // I also stock a lot of wooden brushes from First Impressions, round size 8 and 10. These are expensive on Amazon, so again – look for them at your art store. // Artlicious makes a cheap starter pack of assorted brushes which is what I bought years ago when my kids were just starting to paint.

~ Foam Rollers

~ Magic markers

~ Black Sharpie

Paper

~ Watercolor paper: I stock mostly Canson 90lb 9 X 12 paper. That’s all you will need for this book. If you ever want to do bigger watercolor paintings with your kids (like this) then I would get the Canson 140lb 11 X 15 paper.

~ Colored paper

~ Patterned paper

Adhesives

~ White school glue

~ Washi tape: I get mine from all over. Etsy has some beautiful shops, like Pretty Tape. Here’s a great list of the best washi tape shops on Etsy. // Amazon also has great deals on washi tape bundles.

Tools

~ Scissors: We mostly use orange Fiskars, but I also buy the small child scissors at IKEA.

~ X-acto knife

~ Klever Kutter

Craft Supplies

~ Craft sticks: My students love the jumbo ones the best.

~ Straws: I buy my plastic straws at IKEA, but Amazon also sells a very similar brand. I love the striped paper straws, too.

~ Neon labels: Round and square.

~ Yarn: I buy all my yarn at our local craft store. The only one I buy online is this neon pink yarn by Caron. The kids always pick this one so it goes quickly.

~ Pipe cleaners (Chenille stems)

~ Pom-poms: I usually like to buy separate colors (.5 inch) and then mix them myself. But this assorted pack of 500 will do the trick if you don’t want to spend too much.

~ Beads: Pony beads are plastic with big enough holes that little kids can feel successful. // Colored wooden beads are also easy to bead. // Unfinished wooden beads are prefect for painting with liquid watercolors.

~ Q-tips (Cotton swabs)

~ Toothpicks