Discount Craft Supplies
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Construction Paper
My A#1 pick for what I must have in my
classroom!  There is just no getting around this
material....it's useful in so many ways, for so
many projects, and it's very inexpensive.  I
usually stock up on construction paper by
purchasing in bulk, you can usually get a pretty
good deal at
Oriental Trading Co.  Sometimes
however, we run out of a particular color (like
pink, and green my children's favorite colors)
so I often pick up single color packs from OT
as well.
Craft Sticks

Craft Sticks are also a very versatile item to
keep on hand.  I usually purchase these in two
sizes, regular and large.  They come in a box,
but I find storing them in gallon sized ziploc
bags works best for our family.  There are also
pretty inexpensive, and you can pick up
colored varieties for extra fun.

love to make things out of them!  Sometimes I'll
love to make things out of them!  Sometimes I'll
buy the pre-cut shape foam (you know like
letters or numbers or something) but I find the
most inspiration comes when you hand a child
a simple blank sheet for them to decide the
shape.  I always keep these on hand, and they
have their own special drawer in my craft
bin.have their own special drawer in my craft
bin.
Rhinestones

These are my daughters most favorite things!  
She loves when I get our her jewel box as part
of a craft we are working on.....lets face it
what girl wouldn't love all these sparkly
rhinestones. And I love the price,
Oriental
Trading has the cheapest prices I've found yet.

You can get over 1100 rhinestones for
somewhere around $10.00 (depending on if
you can hit a sale day or not)
Pastels

Pastels were one of my favorite mediums when I
was a kid. I used to love drawing on the paper,
then blending the colors with my fingertip....the
possibilities were endless for the colors I could
create and I felt like a young and undiscovered
Picasso.  That's why I keep pastels in my
classroom for my children to work with....I love
the ease of color blending with them and we
work on shading with them.
Chalk Pastels
These are also pastels but they are chalk
based, so they come out more....well.....chalky.
These are bit more messy in my opinion, the
chalk gets up in the air and I get all freaked out
(when did that start? Hmmmm...)
Anyway, I've found that if you use extra-strength
aerosol hair spray, you can seal in the
children's pictures when they are done, and the
images tend to POP out in color, (try it on
black paper)it's a sight worth getting over the
dusty chalk.
Crayons
Okay, yeah.....Crayons are a given right?  
Crayola Crayons for that matter...there is just
nothing out there that can compare to Crayola,
so don't be fooled by the inexpensive brands,
you'll just be disappointed with all the wax
buildup on your creations.

I put Crayons up here because I wanted to
share the tip:  Stock up on Crayons in Late
Summer and get Back to School Prices.
On this page you'll find photos, descriptions,
and links to my MUST HAVE crafting supplies.
 These are supplies straight from my
classroom, things I always keep on hand for
when the craft bug hits.  Most of these items
are inexpensive, easy to store, and offer
multiple possibilities for use.  If you do
purchase from this page, Oriental Trading
sends back a percentage of your purchase to
keep our Crafty Classroom website up and
running!  So if you need to stock up soon,
please remember us (it's no extra cost to you.)