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When the kids are young, it’s easy to pull out a box of crayons, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and glitter and let the kids create and craft for hours. But as they grow up, it’s important to give tweens and teens tools to help them keep creating. I love seeing my growing kids taking the time to draw, sketch, paint and create. When they use their imagination, their world grows. Here are new tools for tween artists that we need to keep in ready supply to help fuel their creativity!

New Tools for Tween Artists

Dry Erase Crayons

For Christmas this year, my 11 year old daughter wanted a new whiteboard chalkboard Easel. We had a difficult time finding one that didn’t look too kiddish but finally found one online that was perfect. I love the fact that she can still enjoy drawing, making lists and doodling on her whiteboard. Now, we make a point to frequently upgrade her dry erase crayons and markers so she has fresh colors and tips to help her create.

Dry Erase Erasers

Oriental has these fun monster erasers instead of just the typical paper towel or black eraser. These would be super fun as a teacher gift wrapped up with some dry erase markers and a thank you note!

Sketch Pens & Notepads

My kids have been filling up notebooks with doodles and drawings since they were toddlers. Their drawings continue to improve and take new shape and form every year. One of the things that we keep on hand is fresh sketch pens and notepads.

Canvas & Paint

My Mom has been helping the kids explore the world of painting canvases with acrylic paint. She gave my daughter some great tips for using acrylics on canvas.

Materials Needed

• Canvas
• Acrylic Paint
• Paint Brush
• Gesso Surface Prep

Tips from Nonna

• Brushes are expensive, so after each use with acrylic paint, wash thoroughly with dish detergent, rinse well and store brush side up to dry  Never leave soaking in water brush side down. (Reasons:  the water will cause the bristles to loosen from the handle and the brush will lose its shape and be unusable.
• For acrylic painting, remember the paint dries really fast, so if you’re planning to blend the color you’ll need to paint and blend as you go along.
• Gesso Surface Prep is for perfect priming your canvas.  This means that you should paint he entire whiter canvas before beginning to paint.  Reasons:  It seals the canvas and makes you need less paint to cover the pores of the canvas fabric.  If you want to paint the and be able to blend the paint you can paint the Gesso on and before it dries, you can begin applying paint and it will not dry as quickly

By supplying our tweens with some basic tools, we can help them continue being creative and fuel their imagination! What tools do you provide for your tweens to help them create? I’d love to hear!