Five Craft Room Essentials You Might Not Expect

This weekend I’ve spent some time sorting out the various piles that had accumulated in my little craft room and now that it’s a bit clearer, I realised that some of the things that I use all the time aren’t necessarily the most orthodox crafting tools so I thought I’d share them with you to see if I’m not alone in turning every day bits and pieces into must have DIY essentials.

Craft Room Essential #1: Baby Wipes

Being honest, these aren’t just a craft essential – despite being designed for the delicate skin of babies, these suckers will remove almost anything thrown in their path! Whether it’s cleaning the ink off stamps, wiping my hands after painting, wiping excess glue off projects or removing tea cup rings from my craft desk, I wouldn’t be without wet wipes. They’re also a hell of a lot cheaper than purpose built cleaning wipes (and in fact skin care wipes – they’re amazing for removing make up) and are often on 3 for 2 in Boots!

Craft Room Essential #2: Disposable Plastic Cups/Shot Glasses

Plastic containers are great for mixing paint, holding water and glue or even storing pens or brushes in. Whilst being disposable so that if you really get them in a mess you can bin them, they’re robust enough to be washed over and over so that you never really need to throw them away. The shot glasses are great for smaller projects and having the variation in size with the pint glasses covers you for most eventualities, they’re also really cheap too!

Craft Room Essential #3: Cake Decorating Tools

Funnily enough, there’s quite a crossover between the tools you use for cake decorating and for papercrafting. Rather than investing in two sets, as long as you wash them thoroughly after each use, tools such as the above ball tool are great for shaping paper e.g. for creating paper flowers just like they are for modelling with sugarpaste.

Craft Room Essential #4: Iron

Ok so this isn’t such a surprise for someone into sewing, when following a pattern there’s always lots of pressing to be done. You can also press paper if you’re very careful. I’ve also found that you can cheat the system by using hair straighteners to press small things too!

Craft Room Essential #5: A Cup of Tea