Stubby Pencil!

Not as cheap as made-in-China stuff on clearance, but cheaper than mainstream supplies at Walgreens, Stubby Pencil is the best site I've found for general art supplies. They have some awesome cute things like rock-shaped crayons designed for learning the pencil-style grip, nice! (not vitally important to have, but fun) Also all soy crayons for 1$ - the mainstream "non-toxic" ones are still made of petroleum, the natural soy ones give a really smooth and pretty line. These are the standrad 8 packs that we carry in the coloring purse and break out in multiples for play-dates.

Speaking as an artist myself, the pleasant feel of a good crayon or pen sliding over the paper is a big part of enjoying drawing enough to stick with it. Cheap art supplies make art a lot less fun. Good art supplies make it more fun & more successful too. We really don't need cheap art supplies, and don't use them. I'd rather pain in plain water with a good brush than do anything with a really cheap-o one. Good brushes last and last, we don't need cheap ones.

I didn't get any of the school supplies we bought for kindergarten back, so we're buying all that stuff again. I'm thinking to get a bunch of those DIY cars too, for play-dates indoors in the bad-weather months. Another thing we'd love to get is any set of the recycled color-them-yourself cards. They have specific and generic ones, Lily really likes the dinosaurs, garden, barnyard, and space sets, and the Thank You's and Get Wells would be most appreciated too. We've gotten a few from this shop, the quality was really nice.

Thanks for looking!