The Best Christmas and Holiday Paper Craft Supplies

The Best Christmas and Holiday Paper Craft Supplies Categories:

These are the categories I am going to cover in this post.

• Paper Types for Holiday Crafting
• Glues for Holiday Crafting
• Paints and Inks for Holiday Crafting
• Holiday Wreaths
• Fun Stuff for Holiday Crafts
• Glitter and Snow for Winter Crafts
• Cutting Machines for Holiday Paper Crafting

Paper Types for Holiday Crafting

• Cardstock - I use a variety of cardstocks such as glitter cardstock, foil cardstock, as well as regular cardstock. I like 65# cardstock for decorative pieces and 110# cardstock for structural pieces.
• Cardboard - this is the cardboard I'm using for my Christmas crafts
• Watercolor paper - available in a heavyweight (140# or 300 gsm) that is good for painting and constructing 3D projects

Glues for Holiday Crafting

In the list for the Best Christmas and Holiday Paper Craft supplies, I have to include my favorite glues.

• Bearly Art Glue for lighter weight materials
• Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue for cardboard
• Glossy Accents to make shiny surfaces (windows for little houses)
• Mod Podge Matte Sealer - I use Mod Podge for making bases, to mix with snow
• Elmer's Glue-All - this is a good all around glue, but is a little more drippy than the main glues I use. I primarily use it for making crackle-paint siding.

Paints and Inks for Holiday Paper Crafts

• Tim Holtz Distress Paints are my favorite, though expensive
• Apple Barrel Acrylic Paints - this set of 16 paint colors is a good deal
• Craft Smart Acrylic Paints - another set of 16 paint colors that is a bargain
• Alcohol inks for coloring nonporous materials
• Spray stains - works great for leaves and bottle brush trees, but these stains are water-soluble so if you add snow, they will bleed color onto the snow

Holiday Wreaths

For my Alpine Wreath, I used a wreath from Hobby Lobby, but I also added extra greenery to make it fuller and more visually interesting.

• Pine Wreaths from Hobby Lobby generally look good. If possible, it is best to pick them out in person, rather than ordering online.
• Balsam Hill has the most beautiful artificial wreaths, but they are expensive.
• Grapevine Wreaths - Grapevine wreaths can also work for making wreaths with little houses attached, but they probably work best with showcasing only one house in the center.

Fun Stuff for Holiday Crafts

For more fun stuff, here are my recommendations:

• Santa Mugs from Tim Holtz Idea-ology - these are the cutest little mugs, you'll definitely find a place to use them in your Christmas crafting
• Bottlebrush trees - the perfect accompaniment to little houses. This brand of bottlebrush trees is a higher quality than most other brands, but you do have to paint or stain them.
• Christmas Confections Miniature Candy Canes - these candy canes are very high quality, but a little costly
• Miniature Candy Canes - these candy canes look good at a reasonable price
• Multicolored Miniature Candy Canes - if you are looking for more colors for your candy canes, these look like a good option
• Miniature Reindeer - I love these Salvaged Reindeer from Tim Holtz. They are very well made and sturdy. You can paint, glitter, or stain them any color you like.
• Miniature Deer - From Smile Mercantile, these look like very vintage reindeer that come in different colors. They are fairly costly.
• Miniature Santa, Snowman, Toy Soldier - these figures are wonderful for decorating a wreath or a tiny house. You do need to either paint or stain them.

Glitter and Snow for Winter Crafts

In the photo below, you can see examples of snow covered with glitter. Also one tree is covered with mica flakes and the others are covered with snow.

• Glitter - Despite the name of my website, I'm not really a big fan of glitter. But when I do use glitter, this is the brand I use - Rock Candy Glitter. The advantage of this glitter is that they include glitters of different sizes to give more dimension. I've included this link as an example which also shows Mica Flakes.
• Mica Flakes - Mica is kind of a natural glitter as the name says, it comes as flakes rather than tiny glitter pieces. It's also not as white as Rock Candy Glitter, but it gives great dimension to your snowy projects. I used it on some of trees on my Alpine Village Wreath.
• Snow for applying to houses, landscape - Snowtex is my favorite. I like to mix it with white paint and glue to make it flow more easily. If you are going to make a lot of houses (like for a wreath), this is the most economical option.
• Aleene's Glitter Snow is another option. It does have some glitter in the snow, but most reviews said it wasn't a lot of glitter.
• Aleene's True Snow - I haven't used this product, but here is the description: "Add fluffy snow-like texture on your holiday crafts, art projects, and more with Aleene’s True Snow! This dimensional glue product works on most hard surfaces and dries permanent with a flexible hold. It applies and dries white, but can be tinted with acrylic paint to match any project!"

Cutting Machines for Holiday Paper Crafting

These are the main cutting machines that use SVG cutting patterns. I must be honest and say that I've only used Cricut cutting machines. I have 2 Cricut Makers, a Cricut Explore Air 2, a Cricut Joy Xtra, and a Cricut Joy.

Cricut Cutting Machines

• Cricut Maker - this is the main cutting machine that I use. It cuts my cardboard beautifully.
• Cricut Explore 3 - all of my patterns can be cut with this machine. This machine is also less expensive than the Maker.
• Cricut Joy Xtra - this machine also works well with almost all of my patterns. The only disadvantage is that it doesn't have a scoring stylus option directly. But there are workarounds, you can use the foil tool or purchase a 3rd party adapter to use a scoring stylus instead of a pen. And then this machine is available for a great price.
• Cricut Joy - you can make some of my patterns with the Cricut Joy. You have to use the foil tool to make score lines. It does cut lightweight cardboard easily. This is the least expensive option for Cricut cutting machines. I think for making 3D papercraft projects, I would choose the Cricut Joy Xtra over the Cricut Joy.

Silhouette Cameo

Some of my readers use Silhouette Cameo machines. The Silhouette Cameo 5 is the latest version of the their machine.

Brother Scan N Cut

The advantage of the Brother Scan N Cut is that you can scan PDF patterns or photo and then cut them out. Also you don't have to be connected to a computer like you do with the Cricut. This link is for the least expensive version. Again, I must be honest and say that I have never used the Brother Scan N Cut.

I'll add more supplies as I think of more recommendations. I do hope you will enjoy your holiday crafting season.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Lucy