I apologize that these images aren’t “aesthetic” or anything. I think I may do a separate post soon that’s just supplies I use in my Grimoire, but for now, these are things I reach for time and again when doing any sort of craft or art. This is not a smallish post, but it was fun!
Note that I don’t really have favorite paint brushes – I do far more craft painting than “art” painting, so I’m kind of whatever on brushes as long as they’re synthetic. These are the ones I’m using right now but I wouldn’t call them “favorites.” I’ll try to add links to the products where I can; please note they are all Amazon links because it’s the most accessible to the most people, but most of this stuff you can find in other craft stores or online stores if you don’t shop at Amazon.
Left to right:
- Wooden coffee stirrers are useful for just about any miniature craft. They can be flooring, trim, railings, picture frames, and on and on, and they come in boxes of at least a hundred for not much money.
- These Fiskars microtip scissors are awesome.
- I love my little hand drill, which comes with a billion bits, and is much easier to deal with for tiny holes than some big electrical monster.
- I’m currently using Arteza acrylic paints for most of my miniatures, mostly because the box came with 65 colors and wasn’t all that expensive. I’m not sure how well they’d work for fine art, but they’ve been great for my dollhouse.
- My pen of choice for both lettering and drawing is the Uni Pin. They’re waterproof and don’t smudge, and they work well in my bullet journal as well as on drawing paper.
- In the back we have Mod Podge matte glue/sealant and one of their newer products, Dimensional Magic – it’s essentially the same thing as Ranger’s Glossy Accents, but GA is getting hard to find in any of the stores near me. Mod Podge brand things are everywhere. (And if you say Modge Podge I’ll scream.)
- I got this tool box from Temu, but don’t worry, I’m not shopping there anymore (although honestly if you’re willing to buy from Amazon or Wal Mart you have no business lecturing people about Temu); it was very inexpensive and isn’t what you’d call professional quality, but it was a great size for my miniaturist’s tools. I added the Pusheen stickers.
- I started out my dollhouse using wood glue, but working with it kind of annoyed me, so the last few months I’ve gone back to good old Aleene’s Tacky Glue. This fast-grab stuff lives up to its name pretty well. I especially like how you can get these stand-up bottles so you don’t have to wait for all the glue to run back down to the tip every time.
- On the left front is a silicone clay shaping tool. I ordered a set for working with polymer and air-dry clay, but discovered that this one is great for applying tiny amounts of glue, and the glue comes right off when you’re done. (Link goes to a different set but it’s the same thing.) I think people also use them for nail art.
- The three little pots are ground up chalk pastels. They’re excellent for shading and coloring polymer clay and other things; I use a paintbrush to apply them.
- In the back we have a razor saw – a godsend when you’re working with craft wood! An X-Acto knife can only do so much, but this wee saw, which came with a very useful miter box, is a great and inexpensive tool to have and it comes apart for easy storage. Mine finally needs a new blade but it lasted over a year.
- I also use a lot of nail files for sanding. I do use sandpaper for larger things but a two-sided nail file is so much easier to work with and travel with.
- Lastly we have strong double-sided tape, which I use in all my artsy-craftsy projects. There are a lot of brands out there and as far as I can tell they’re all exactly the same product. I don’t like anything smaller than 1/4″ in width because it’s very hard to keep on the roll, but sizes up to over an inch are available. 1/4″ and 1/2″ are my faves. It tears easily and sticks firmly.
I added some of the tools I use for paper crafting and bullet journaling (including my BoS), but many come in handy for miniatures as well.
- Left to right we have a white rubber eraser, in my opinion the best kind – I also love the ones in a plastic holder that click up. You can get refills for those, yay! But the block one shown here is great for larger areas.
- My pen of choice for everything is the Pilot Precise V-5. Unfortunately they’re not water resistant so they’re not all that great for using with wet media or markers, so I adopted the Uni Pin for those purposes. I love a smooth inked 0.5 pen.
- The Kuru-Toga mechanical pencil delights me – because of how the lead rotates it almost never breaks. Again, I prefer 0.5 width.
- The Uni Ball Signo gel pen in white is very popular among paper artists and crafters – it’s so hard to find a white pen that’s opaque enough. The popular variety is the broad nib, but I prefer these “Angelic” versions that are a finer nib on Jet Pens (a very dangerous website for writing implement enthusiasts).
- Ahhhh, Zebra Mildliners. They work as traditional highlighters in non-screaming colors, but they tend to be used all over bullet journals for adding gentle color. I particularly enjoy the neutral color set, but I have all of them. I even use the brown one when doing miniatures – it stands in for wood stain very well in small areas.
- This particular Scotch glue stick is in my opinion the best for gluing paper to paper. It hangs on a lot more firmly than regular glue sticks.
- I almost forgot to include my tweezers! Very important for making miniatures! I think these are also made for nail art, but their tiny tiny points are exactly what I need for minis. The bent neck is especially helpful for those hard to reach places.
- For color both in art and craft I use my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. They don’t use animal-based colors in their lead, and because the lead is oil-based they don’t break constantly like, say, Prismacolors. I do however use a Prismacolor blending pencil since Polychromos doesn’t have one of its own. I’ve been meaning to try gamsol for blending but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
- A bone folder (not made of bone, of course, I think this one is just hard plastic) is handy for everything, but it’s even useful in miniatures for folding tiny paper boxes and book pages.
- Last of all is a completely free tool! If you use washi tape for anything at all, don’t bother with expensive cutters, just get yourself a gift card. It tears the tape perfectly and is also good for smoothing it down. There are all sorts of cutters out there, but I have yet to want anything more pricey than my old Target Pharmacy card. I cut it in half so it would fit better into my travel kit.