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Ready, set, craft! Get your child’s creativity flowing and streamline your art-supply shopping with a ready-made crafting kit. Complete with all the materials needed to make a host of creations at home, craft kits usually come with some combination of pom-poms, scissors, stickers, glitter, paper, Popsicle sticks, and more. Whether your child is looking to make pipe-cleaner animals, a handcrafted card, or a Popsicle-stick house, a kit’s got you covered. Guaranteed to inspire boys, girls, toddlers, and tweens, craft kits are the answer to restless minds and fingers. Browse our selection of the best options below.
Brought to you by the oldest and most widely circulated art magazine in the world, ARTnews Recommends helps you make the choice that suits you best from products in hundreds of art and craft supply categories. Our offerings are based on intensive research, interviews with artists and craftspeople, and the accumulated experience of the site’s editors and writers. We provide trustworthy and helpful advice about materials to artists ranging from beginner to professional.
ARTNEWS RECOMMENDS
Crayola Colossal Creativity Tub
This thoughtfully assembled tub from Crayola gives kids a big variety of good-quality, complementary craft supplies to use. It comes with crayons, twistable colored pencils, markers, kid-friendly paints, paint brushes, modeling clay, Model Magic, construction paper, and sidewalk chalk sticks—and each medium comes organized in its own package. Young ones can stay busy for hours, both indoors and outdoors, as they make 2D and 3D works. Everything is suitable for artists ages five and up, and there’s more than enough to share among siblings or during playdates.
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Kid Made Modern Arts and Crafts Library
Designed for kids ages eight and up, this portable center for creativity provides scads of supplies for hours of crafting. These include close to 300 pipe cleaners, more than 100 googly eyes (adhesive and non-adhesive), lots of plastic jewels, and dozens of beads and felt pieces. Kids can exercise their imaginations and make all kinds of constructions or follow the included guidebook, which provides step-by-step instructions for projects. The high-quality materials will result in artful keepsakes that proud parents will want to show off.
ANOTHER GOOD CHOICE
Crayola Inspiration Art Case
Kids will feel like grown-up artists with this kit, which comes with lots of coloring tools stored neatly in a stylish and sturdy briefcase. It features 64 crayons (more than our top pick), 20 short colored pencils, 40 washable markers, and 15 sheets of paper. The colors are rich, and the tools don’t wear down quickly. Suitable for kids ages five and up, this is an especially smart choice if you’re seeking an easily portable set to bring along while traveling.
TOP OF THE LINE
Faber-Castell Pottery Studio
Does your kid love clay? Consider purchasing this pottery studio in a box. It comes with a mini wheel powered by batteries and a foot pedal; while slower than regular-size wheels (and quite noisy), it’s capable of supporting all kinds of tiny pots. The set is designed for users eight and up, and there’s a slight learning curve to using this little wheel, but it offers a good introduction to the pottery process. Also included are three pounds of synthetic clay, 12 pans of paint, two paint brushes, sculpting tools, illustrated instructions, an apron, even a table cover to protect your furniture from this relatively messy craft.
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Craft-tastic Artist’s Box
Intended for children ages 6 to 12, this set comes with prompts that draw young artists into the creative process. It’s stocked with fibrous and other textured material such as tissue paper, embroidery thread, chenille stems, feathers, and pompoms. Also included are seven “challenge cards” that guide kids to create a mobile, a sculpture, a self-portrait, and other projects by posing opened-ended questions like “How will you make it reflect you?” and “How will you attach things?” It’s a great choice if you’re seeking something that inspires kids and really pushes their imagination.