Beginner's Supplies - A guide for starting out

Beginner's Supplies: What you'll need and when you'll need them.

The Absolute Basics

• Cardstock in white, black and coloured
• Colouring mediums:
• Pencils A basic set of Faber-Castell school pencils is perfectly fine and suitable for the techniques we discuss here.
• Alcohol markers Bic or Sharpie Sets are economical, great options that will blend just as well as the more expensive sets usually purchased by the more experienced crafter.
• Watercolour paints, inks or pens (watercolour pencils are cheap but are not a popular cardmaking medium). Dew Drops ink pads, mentioned next, can also be used as a watercolor medium.
• Ink pads: versamark clear, black and colour. The cheapest option are mini ink cubes or Dew Drops with reinkers and matching pens available (after 15 years, I'm still using the same set of ink pads and they're still my "go to" choice). There's more about different types of ink pads in this post.
• Gel pens: great for writing and colouring on non porous surfaces.
• Paper Trimmer or a craft knife, self healing mat and metal ruler.
• Adhesives, both dry and wet (see this post for a fully detailed discussion)
• Erasers: a soft white eraser, a sand based eraser and a dry glue eraser will all come in handy.
• Scissors, a decent pair! Cheap scissors will blunt quickly when cutting paper and repeated purchasing becomes very expensive. In contrast, the Tonic Studios/Tim Holtz scissors are a particular stand out and available in three sizes. The medium sized set are great for general use and the micro set are great for fussy cutting. They're serrated and have a non stick coating that will last many years. You'll save money over time buying these early in your crafting journey and, with fussy cutting tips found in this post, you'll become a wizz with the scissors in no time. And, you can keep them in perfect condition by following this advice. 
• Tweezers and a jewel picker tool: these both help with getting tiny pieces into place perfectly. You can even buy "reverse tweezers" that are squeezed to open. These are great for clamping items and holding items for long periods.
• Digital Stamps, Clipart, Card Kits and patterned papers: the cheapest and most versatile option for images that are easily sized to suit the project. All our sponsors sell these and you can find the links to their stores in our sidebar. There's also a full tutorial on how to use these resources here and you will need to have access to a printer for these.
• Or, if you don't have a printer:
• Photo polymer or rubber sentiment stamp sets and an acrylic block to stamp them with. These sets can be expensive and can limit your design options but are a great option if you don't have printer access. If you have access to a printer, you can skip these early in your crafting journey and print your sentiments on cardstock and just cut them out as desired.
• Patterned paper packs, but these can be restrictive and you can be left with waste. Again, digital sets are much more economical and more easily stored.
• Embellishments:
• Adhesive gems and pearls
• Ribbon
• Small flowers (paper or silk)
• Lace
• Brads 
• Charms, or anything else that takes your fancy, there are no rules!
• Cleaning Supplies
• Car chamois 
  A car chamois will clean dye ink off stamps with just water but for more stubborn stains, a dedicated stamp scrubber and stamp cleaning liquid may be required. Please note that some dye inks will permanently stain photopolymer stamps and the chamois. Inks like the Dew Drops range will not.
• microfibre cloths, paper towel (or even cheap facial tissues), wetwipes.
• A lamp with a cool white daylight globe or a dedicated crafting lamp. Dedicated craft lamps can be extremely expensive, a cool white daylight globe in a regular desk lamp will work just as well.

More supplies as you progress:

Stencils and inking:

Stencils and ink blending tools can be a fun and inexpensive way of creating interesting effects. Distress inks and oxides are most commonly used but if you have the Dew Drops range for stamping, these can also be used for inking over stencils as well.

Applying the ink can be done with foam pads or, probably better for a beginner, an inexpensive make-up brush.

Stamping and heat embossing:

All these supplies are required for stamping and heat embossing. Some may find this an expensive cardmaking style to adopt as most of these supplies are needed before you start.

• Stamp sets (photopolymer or rubber)
• Stamp positioner or stamping platform (great for those who struggle with successfully stamping in a single go, like me!)
• Heat tool
• Embossing Powders (clear, silver, gold, coloured)
• Antistatic powder bag (see how to make your own, using cornflour/cornstarch here)

For the very beginner, this video explains the very basics of stamping.

Scoreboard and bone folder:

A scorer made from bovine bone is much more gentle on cardstock than a Teflon coated metal or plastic scorer and won't tear into cardstock quite so much.

If you have a trimmer with a cutting track, you can just use your cutting track instead of buying a dedicated score board.

Die Cutting & Dry Embossing:

A manually cranked machine, like a Big Shot is a great, economical first machine that will allow you to use all the thin metal dies to cut shapes, intricate images and words. Nesting sets of basic shape dies are the most versatile and basic greeting word dies will always be useful. Just remember to check the size of the dies before you buy. Some dies are larger than the 6 inch width of the regular sized die cutting machines and require the larger width machines like the Big Shot Plus. If you can afford the larger machine when starting out, I'd recommend you invest in that wider machine. 

Embossing and Embossing Folders:

The folders range in size from 4"×6" to A4 so check the size before you buy. 

You may also want to get an embossing mat that will allow you to emboss using stencils and dies as well.

Getting a good result with this technique by following the machine's manufacturer instructions can be difficult. Instead, the information in this post should give you great results every time.

Even more advanced, Foiling:

This technique looks stunning and can be done with an everyday laminator and a few basic supplies. To foil over a printed image or wording, you'll need to print with a laser printer but there are toner pens glues and screen paints available that will allow you to apply foil using stencils and masks. 

Please also note there are two types of foil available, one that's labelled "heat reactive and another for use with a die and heat plate (a much more expensive option). For foiling with a laminator, only the foils marked "heat reactive" will work.

Great Beginner Resources 

Planning Your Card Designs 

This post will help explain how to build a design.

Cardmaking sketches

These are drawings of card layouts that can help design a complete card front. A collection of these are available here and there are over 400 hundred also available here. There's also many other different designs available on various sites, just use your browser to search for them.

Different card folds

Not all cards are folded in half. Along with all the fancy card folds that can be found on this site (just click this link to see them all), this site lists lots of different card styles and folds.

Don't forget, if you have any questions or problems, please reach out and leave a comment below. We will will reply as soon as we can. Or, if you're a little shy, you're welcome to contact us using the contact form for a more private chat via email.