12 ideas from the art & craft area of The Toy Shop. Nothing is sold here — pick anything up and it opens a pre-filled search at the retailer.
The painter's floor is the messy one: a tin of paints with the brush laid across it, a sorted tray of craft supplies, opened blocks of modelling clay and a stack of sketchbooks. Art and craft gifts for kids are a category where more is not better. A child handed a giant box of pens tends to use a handful of them; a child given one decent set of paints and some proper paper makes something.
The useful question is what the child already does. If they draw constantly, sketchbooks and pencils get used up and wanted again. If they like making things with their hands, clay and craft kits suit them better than paint.
One thing worth weighing: paint and clay mean mess, and the adult who lives with the child will be the one cleaning it up. Washable paint is worth looking for.
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Paint Set
A paint set is the gift that makes a child feel taken seriously as an artist. The one on the painter's bench is an open tin of pan watercolours with a brush laid across it and a water jar beside it. Pan watercolours are the tidy option, needing only water and packing away into their tin. Pots of thick paint are bolder and messier, and suit a younger child working big. Add a pad of heavy paper if you can, because wet paint wrinkles thin paper. A standing easel is the large version of this gift, for a home with room to leave it up.
Craft Kit
A craft kit is a rainy-afternoon gift, and a good one is mostly supplies rather than instructions. The tray on the painter's bench is sorted into compartments of felt shapes, pipe cleaners and wooden beads, with a pair of safety scissors. A kit like that can become a dozen different things. The kits to be wary of make one fixed object and are finished in twenty minutes. Bracelet-making kits suit an older child, often one who wants to make something to give to a friend. For a young child, check the age marking, because beads count as small parts.
Modelling Clay
Modelling clay is one of the few toys that is genuinely different every time it comes out. The board on the painter's bench holds four opened blocks of coloured clay and a modelling tool. Two kinds are worth telling apart. Soft dough-type clay suits small hands and dries out if it is left uncovered; oil-based modelling clay stays workable and suits an older child making figures that need to hold their shape. A set with a few simple tools is more useful than a huge range of colours, since the colours end up mixed together quickly anyway.
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks are the quiet workhorse of the painter's floor. A child who draws goes through paper faster than any adult expects, and a stack of proper sketchbooks tells them their drawing is worth keeping. The three on the bench are cloth-bound with elastic closures and a pencil laid on top. Spiral-bound books lie flat, which helps a small hand. Pair them with something to draw with: crayons for younger children, coloured pencils once the drawings get detailed. A modest set of good pencils outlasts a giant tin of poor ones.
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