Guest post by Stacie Nelson from Motherhood on a Dime
Encouraging my children’s creativity and taking time for memory-making activities is a priority of mine. One of my favorite ways to do this is by keeping several well-stocked craft boxes available at all times!
Unfortunately, if you are not careful, purchasing craft supplies can be an expensive undertaking (especially when you’re drooling over the latest and greatest gizmos and gadgets)! But with a little bit of planning and a tad of creativity, you can stock a craft box very inexpensively. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Shop Back-to-School Sales
Now is the perfect time to stock up on supplies for your craft box, because prices are at the lowest you’ll find them! Don’t just buy what the kids need for school — plan ahead and buy what you’ll need for the whole year at home, too. It’s much less expensive to fill your boxes now with crayons, gluesticks, notecards, scissors, pencils, pens, paper, etc.
(Warning: Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ll feel sticker-shock when you run out of something in the middle of the year and have to replace it!)
Raid the recycling bin
Before you throw something away, think about adding it to your craft box! If you don’t consider yourself crafty or you aren’t used to thinking about items in this way, it may be challenging at first. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes! There are so many items that can be repurposed. Here are just a few ideas:
cereal boxes • coffee cans • toilet paper rolls • plastic trays from various packaging • jars • lids • tissue paper from gifts • old cards • milk cartons • rubber bands from newspapers • tin cans • junk mail magnets • cloth scraps • drink carriers • seeds • beans • scrap paper • egg cartons
(You can find a more complete list of ideas here.)
Shop garage sales or dollar stores
Keep your eyes open while garage sale shopping and you can find amazing deals on craft and educational supplies! I’ve found flashcards, bags of fabric, scrapbook supplies, alphabet stamps, lunch sacks, and more for much less than $1. Garage sales are also a great place to find storage containers for your supplies.
Also, consider looking for inexpensive craft items like fun foam, pom-poms, frames, and stickers at a dollar store or in the dollar section at Target.
Host a craft supply party or swap
One of my favorite places to buy craft items is online. Shopping through a bargain site like Discount School Supply can save you money when you buy in bulk — but who really needs 1000 crafts sticks or 25 bottles of glue?
A great (and fun) solution is to gather some friends, pool your resources, and make an order of the supplies you want. Later, you can have a party to divvy up the goodies!
Another simple idea is to have a craft swap with items you already have. Trade those supplies you aren’t using — someone else may love them!
What are your favorite ways to save on craft supplies?
Stacie blogs about her quest to find balance and bargains at Motherhood on a Dime. You can also find her sharing simple activities for little kids over at The Amazing Mess and pinning all of her favorite kid’s craft, homeschooling, and organizational ideas on Pinterest.
Megan says
I guess since I love to craft I find the prices pretty reasonable. My local craft stores (HL) has a coupon, sales all the time, and I even found a big barrel of supplies for 9.99 (- the 40% off coupon) and for 6.00 we had all kinds of fun.
Don’t forget freecycle – one man’s trash is another treasure!
Also just about every business out there has some surplus items! Any small printing company has lots of paper “ends” that they can give away. I work for a construction company and we use the the old “plans” to make huge pieces of drawing paper for the kids. A fun activity is to have the kids lay down and trace around them – they now have a drawing as big as they are! I also save the backs of legal pads for chipboard (which recently came in handy when I made 30 feltboards).
lots of places now have “scrapbooking” yard sales – look for those. Tons of stickers and pattern paper for cheap.
Also watch the craft stores for a 50% off crayola sale. I combined that with a 5.00 off 25.00 sale to get crayola 60% off!
Tami says
Hey! I’m happy to see your guest post here–I was just thinking of your Amazing Mess blog and wondering where/how you store your craft stuff…I had a craft drawer in my previous house, but now I’m down to a big wheeled rubbermaid container (which is sadly in the garage right now, and and over-stuffed cabinet in my girls’ room. Some things would be easily kept in shoebox-sized clear plastic containers, but many things are big and random…any advice??? Thanks! I am missing you today!
Britni @ Our Eventual Homestead says
Love, love, love it! My daughter is just getting to the age where we can really start having fun with crafts. I started picking up a few items this summer with all the back to school deals. Great stuff!
Courtney says
Oh, you just gave me the most wonderful idea (for us)! We will be homeschooling this year and I’ve been wondering what to do with the kids’ old lunch bags. I hate to throw them out but they’re not in good enough condition to donate, either. But I can turn them into individual craft supply bags for each of them! Thanks!!
Stacie says
Great idea! You can also use them for all kinds of crafts, too….we’ve made kites, puppets, building blocks, and more with them!
Heather @ Family Friendly Frugality says
I love both your blogs Stacie, but have definitely found some fun things to do with the kids on your crafty blog! Love this post!
Stacie says
Thanks, Heather! 🙂
Jessica @ The Abundant Wife says
Thanks for writing this! My mother is an artist, and I am/was an art teacher. All of my siblings are artistic in different ways too. People would always ask us how we had so many talented kids in our family. We would often respond as you did–that my mother kept a lot of art supplies around and encouraged us to create things ourselves!
Stacie says
Thanks, Jessica! My mom says one of my younger sisters always pulled stuff out of the trash (before the recycling days) and would stash stuff in her closet!
My mom was very open to letting us create and do (almost) whatever we could dream up!
Bridget says
I’ll have to continue inspiring creativity without scissors…yesterday my oldest daughter decided to be creative and give herself and her sister a haircut!!
Crystal says
Oh no!!! 🙁
Stacie says
I’ve had to do the same thing…our scissors actually stay put away, unless I’m close by!
The Prudent Homemaker says
Well, we actually COULD use 1000 craft sticks. I have 6 small children, and they keep seeing all the cool ideas they can make with craft sticks (like building little log cabins–that takes a TON of sticks!)
We used some of them as popsicles sticks, too.
My parents gave us a box of 1000 before and it didn’t last long!
Andrea Q says
We use them to ID seeds in the spring, too.
Mary Ann says
I just recently picked up a box of 1000 for a quarter at a yard sale. It was opened but didn’t look like many had been used. So many uses! And for a quarter, I’m willing to store them for a few years if need be. We use them for row markers when gardening too.
I found a round-up on Crafty Crow of things to make with craft sticks. I’m really liking the popsicle stick magnets and think they’d make great inexpensive Christmas gifts for our nephews.
http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2011/07/popsicle-stick-crafts-for-kids.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FiTVx+%28The+Crafty+Crow%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Amber says
Great advice!! I use a ton of recyclables….even with my pre-toddler (16 month old).
Crystal, I am currently posting ideas for pre-toddler activites which is not so easy to find online. I would love to share a few here. Let me know if you are interested. Thus far, I have only published one post, but have three more ready to go. Three of the four are completed with items found inordinate around your house.
Crystal says
You are more than welcome to submit them as a guest post through the guest post form and I’ll be more than happy to consider sharing them as a guest post!
Jenn C says
Amber, what is your website?
Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog says
Great ideas!!
Craft supplies don’t have to cost a lot of money — We also like to check in to our local paint store for discontinued wallpaper sample books. Most of the time, they have several to pick from & you can get them for FREE! I’ve also heard you can find end rolls of paper for free from the local newspaper.
Stacie says
Oh…I definitely need to add wallpaper sample books — we have a few of those, too!
Kim J @Going Thrifty says
We have a “bye-bye” bag that only comes out when we are at a restuarant or waiting at the dr’s office. I try to keep it restocked with crafty finds at Michaels and the Dollar Store. Between school supply deals, those two stores and an occasional yard sale, we stay pretty stocked up. I love the idea of the recycle bin and will have to try that. Thanks for sharing.
Kim @http://goingthrifty.com
Kate says
I like to save greeting/birthday/anniversary/etc cards the we receive at the house. The cards come in so many shapes, sizes and colors. The kids enjoy cutting out the designs and gluing them onto their own paper. Don’t neglect the confetti and party invitations!
Amy says
Oh, that’s a good idea. Thanks!
Mercedes Hayes says
The craft swap sounds like a fun idea! I will need to keep in mind the school supply sales. What a great idea to stock up for the home as well. Thank you for the helpful tips!
Making My Own Luck says
I gave my son some little bits of pasta, a bottle of glue and an old shoe box last weekend and he was busy for about an hour!
Andrea Q says
Dried beans, rice and pasta make great mosaics!
Kimberly says
I started carrying similar items (glue stick, box of crayons, scissors, 2 small pads of paper and handi-wipes) in a small “super hero” bag. This comes to church and restaurants …. Helps keep my 4 year old entertained while we are out and about.
Melanie Rauch says
I love the idea of a craft swap!! That would be good for my friends and my home schooling kids!! I am going to organize this today!
Betsy Durand says
Thanks for these tips! I just tried this – in part- last week with my three little boys– choose boxes of all shapes and sizes out of our recyclying bin, pringle cans, and cereal boxes and let them create their own “space ships”. Soon, they were playing like Star War jedi’s!
Kimberly says
I love that idea! Thanks for sharing!!!
Stacie says
Awesome!! We love our recyling bin, too! 🙂
Karen says
Great ideas to inspire creativity in children. We always take advantage of the back to school sales for all year long usuage. The Dollar Tree has some awesome craft stuff.