Ideas for art gifts

[howdy31]

My son is 7 and loves drawing and other arty stuff. He doesn't play with toys really so I thought of getting a box and filling it with some art stuff for him. Was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what I could put inside? I'm going to put in the typical pens/pencils etc but was hoping to get some more random ideas!

Fimo. It's the best!

Oh fab, il look into that. Thanks!

My daughter is the same, but I think you have to ask your son for specifics. My daughter likes certain brands of pens, sketchbooks etc. I took her to a big hobby store and she didn’t really react to most things then suddenly big grin - she had found her aisle! Mostly pens, those ones with a brush tip. I never would have known unless I’d taken her. I’d have wasted money on stuff she’d never use.

Lolly sticks
Masking tape
Tracing paper
Pipe cleaners
Googly eyes
Glue pen
Scissors
Stencils
Drinking straws

What about plain white wallpaper, so he can do a really really big comic-type artwork?

Shrinkles are absolutely brilliant - on amazon or in hobby craft

Scratch art - Melissa and Doug

Foil art - galt

Stained glass sticker art - Melissa and Doug

Hobbycraft does plaster of Paris duck, train, photo frame etc with a set of paints

Paint by numbers

Art start books are good at teaching children how to draw

stickers by numbers

Hama beads

Aqua beads - bonus over Hama beads is that children can spray the water to set the beads themselves, you don’t have to iron them

How about one of those paint your own money box type things? You can get them in hobby craft.

A book of art/craft type projects suitable for his age.

Baker Ross do lots of nice seasonal craft things. I bought a whole load of last year's Christmas stock in the sale a few weeks ago

The Works do great little crafting sets for your ds to try some new things.
Their art supplies are great too...you'll get much more for your money than in hobbycraft. They may not be as good quality though.

The range has many of the same brands as hobbycraft for paints, inks etc, but much cheaper.

We got our 8yr old acrylic paints, paint pallet, brushes, canvases and a table top easel for his birthday, he loved it.

Thank you v much for all your replies, lots of really good ideas to look into!

The Works do great little crafting sets for your ds to try some new things.

I was in there getting a couple of stocking fillers this morning. I got an air drying clay kit and a painting stones kit. They’re £7 each or two for £10.

A glue gun is an essential! Plus interesting stickers, glitter, pipecleaners, lolly sticks, paper and card, tape and bluetack.

My dc love window sticker paint at the moment.

A pad with black paper and a few pale colouring pencils (you can usually buy them individually in craft or art shops) in say a true white, a very pale blue, cream, very pale pink, very pale grey and very pale green with may be a silver and gold biro makes a great art present - on the one hand it's fairly ordinary but drawing the light bits rather than the dark bits makes it a different skill to figure out...

The other thing to do is to look to see if you have a scrap store locally - you'll need to google your area to find where your closest one is.

My local one (in MK!) is great - you pay a £10 annual membership and then get a reduced rate on all their ordinary art supplies plus any scrap you buy is ridiculously cheap. Plus it's environmentally friendly as a bonus. A few examples - locally there is a factory that makes wooden boxes with big holes cut out of them. They give these to the Scrap Store who sell them 4 for a pound - if you wanted to buy one of these wooden disks in Hobbycraft they'd cost you £2-3 each. They also have end of rolls of paper from a printer - so it's nice hardback book quality paper - about 15-20 inches high, on a roll for about £3. They're all slightly different lengths but I have one that I've had for years and must have at least 100 m on - it's just gone on for ages. Significantly cheaper and nicer than buying a roll of paper from ikea or wh smiths etc. It's a bit of an alladin's cave, you never know what you'll find and it will be different each time buy my kids love going so it's a great thing to do at the start of the holidays and they can buy bits to make whatever they fancy, while I just buy the bits like glue and the paper rolls. I got a trolley load of stuff to make assorted scarecrows for the local scarecrow trail and it only cost me a fiver! You could give him membership (which might have to be your membership) and a couple of homemade vouchers for £5 to spend each time you go for a couple of trips and you'd have fun and end up with loads of craft supplies (good to think in terms of splitting it into two trips as the first time they go it can be a bit overwhelming - so go once, get used to it, use some supplies... and then once they get into making stuff they'll want to go back once they've had a chance to think on what they want to make!)

Around that age I got dd a desktop easel box. They come round in the lidl specials every so often. I took out the acrylic paint tubes, brushes and canvas and put in age appropriate supplies. Last year I gave her oil and chalk pastels and textured paper and this year I’ll pop the brushes and paints into her stocking.
It’s a gift that has grown with her, and it keeps everything tidy and contained and can be set up anywhere.

Wibdib I want a membership!
Your scrap store sounds amazing. I completely forgot I used to go to one in West London ages ago, think it was in Shepherds bush near or probably where Westfield is.