Top 16 'Blank-Page-Beating' Craft Supplies to explore at home - Goh Ling Yong
We’ve all been there. Staring at a blank page, a pristine canvas, or a fresh ball of clay. It’s a moment filled with infinite possibility, which is precisely what can make it so paralyzing. The pressure to create something "good," something "perfect," can be so immense that we don't create anything at all. This formidable foe is known as creative block, and it visits even the most seasoned artists.
But what if the goal wasn't perfection? What if the goal was simply to play? Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe that the antidote to creative paralysis is curiosity and experimentation. It’s about finding tools and materials that are so inherently fun and engaging that you forget to be afraid of making a mistake. It’s about getting your hands moving and letting your mind follow.
This list is your arsenal against the tyranny of the blank page. We've gathered 16 of our favorite craft supplies that are perfect for exploring at home. They are accessible, versatile, and designed to coax out your inner creator, one small, joyful mark at a time. Let’s dive in and find your new favorite way to make a beautiful mess.
1. Watercolors
There’s a reason watercolors are a timeless classic. Their fluid, transparent nature encourages you to let go of control. Colors bleed into one another, creating beautiful, unexpected gradients and textures that you could never fully plan. This unpredictability is a gift when you're feeling stuck, as it forces you to react and adapt rather than rigidly execute a pre-formed idea.
Unlike thicker paints, watercolor is all about layers and light. Starting with a simple set of pans or tubes and some decent paper is all you need. The process of dropping pigment onto a wet page and watching it bloom is a meditative experience in itself. It teaches you to work with the medium, not against it, which is a wonderful lesson in creative flexibility.
Get Started Tip: Try a "wet-on-wet" exercise. Wet a section of your paper with clean water, then simply touch your loaded brush to the wet area. Watch the color spread and feather out. Experiment with dropping different colors next to each other and see how they mingle. Create abstract washes of color without trying to paint a specific "thing."
2. Gouache
Think of gouache as watercolor's opaque, velvety cousin. It’s a water-based paint, but it dries to a flat, matte, and vibrant finish. This makes it incredibly satisfying for creating bold, graphic illustrations and layering colors from dark to light (something that's tricky with traditional watercolor). If you find watercolor too transparent, gouache might be your perfect match.
Gouache is fantastic for beating creative block because it's so correctable. Made a mistake? Just let it dry and paint right over it! This freedom to easily cover up "errors" lowers the stakes and encourages experimentation. It's perfect for color-blocking, creating clean shapes, and exploring illustration styles you see all over Instagram and Pinterest.
Get Started Tip: Paint simple, flat shapes like fruit, leaves, or geometric patterns. Focus on mixing colors and seeing how they look next to each other. Challenge yourself to create a small composition using only three colors plus white.
3. Alcohol Inks
If you're looking for pure, unadulterated play, look no further than alcohol inks. These are highly pigmented, fast-drying, dye-based inks that are activated by isopropyl alcohol. They are used on non-porous surfaces like ceramic tiles, Yupo paper (a synthetic, waterproof paper), or glass. The results are breathtakingly vibrant and completely unpredictable.
Working with alcohol inks feels more like a science experiment than a painting session. You drop colors onto your surface, add alcohol to make them move and blend, and use a straw or heat tool to blow them around. The process is entirely about letting go and embracing the chaos. You can't control it, you can only guide it, making it the ultimate tool for silencing your inner critic.
Get Started Tip: Grab a cheap ceramic tile from a hardware store and a few bottles of ink. Drop a couple of different colors onto the tile, then add a few drops of isopropyl alcohol and tilt the tile around. Watch how the colors react and create otherworldly patterns.
4. Air-Dry Clay
Sometimes, the best way to get out of your head is to get into your hands. Air-dry clay provides a wonderfully tactile and grounding experience without the need for a professional pottery studio or kiln. It’s soft, pliable, and incredibly forgiving. If you don't like what you've made, you can just squish it back into a ball and start over.
This medium is perfect for creating small, functional, or decorative objects. Think trinket dishes, incense holders, wall hangings, or small sculptures. The slow, mindful process of pinching, rolling, and shaping the clay can be incredibly therapeutic. Once dry, you can sand it, paint it with acrylics, and seal it for a finished look.
Get Started Tip: Make a simple coil pot. Roll out long "snakes" of clay and coil them on top of each other, smoothing the seams as you go, to build up the walls of a small vessel. It's a fundamental pottery technique that's easy and satisfying.
5. Polymer Clay
For those who love tiny details and durable results, polymer clay is a dream come true. This oven-bake clay comes in a rainbow of colors and stays soft until you bake it in your home oven. It’s perfect for making intricate jewelry, keychains, miniatures, and figurines.
Because it doesn't dry out in the air, you can work on a project for hours or even days without any pressure to finish. This makes it a great medium for detailed work and experimentation. You can mix colors to create custom shades, create marbled effects, or build complex "canes" with intricate patterns running through them. It’s a medium with incredible depth that you can start exploring with just a few basic blocks of color.
Get Started Tip: Try making marbled beads. Choose two or three colors, roll each into a snake, then twist them all together. Fold and twist the combined snake a few times, then roll it into a ball. You'll see a beautiful marbled pattern emerge. Poke a hole through it before baking to create a bead for a necklace or keychain.
6. Embroidery Floss & Hoops
In a world of instant gratification, there is something deeply satisfying about a slow, mindful craft like embroidery. Modern embroidery has shed its traditional image and is now used to create everything from sassy quotes to stunningly detailed portraits and landscapes. All you need is a hoop, some fabric (even an old t-shirt will do), a needle, and some colorful floss.
Embroidery is like drawing with thread. It’s a rhythmic, repetitive process that can calm a busy mind. The focus is on each individual stitch, which helps you stay present and stops you from worrying about the final outcome. It's a low-cost craft that's easy to pick up and put down, making it perfect for busy schedules.
Get Started Tip: Learn three basic stitches: the running stitch, the backstitch, and the satin stitch. You can find countless free tutorials on YouTube. With just these three stitches, you can draw lines, outline shapes, and fill in areas with color. Try stitching a simple flower or your initial onto a piece of fabric.
7. Posca Paint Pens
What if you could have the vibrant, opaque look of acrylic paint without the brushes, water cups, and messy cleanup? Enter the Posca paint pen (and other brands of acrylic markers). These pens are filled with water-based acrylic paint and work on almost any surface: paper, wood, rocks, glass, fabric, metal, and more.
Their pen-like format makes them feel less intimidating than a brush and a palette. They offer incredible control for line work, lettering, and filling in solid blocks of color. They are perfect for doodling your way out of a creative block, decorating everyday objects, or adding fine details to mixed-media pieces.
Get Started Tip: Go on a nature walk and find a few smooth, flat rocks. Take them home, wash them, and use your Posca pens to decorate them with patterns, mandalas, or cheerful messages. It's a simple project that combines nature and art.
8. Washi Tape
Washi tape is decorative paper tape that comes in an endless variety of colors and patterns. It’s a low-stakes, high-impact craft supply that is removable and repositionable, meaning you can't really make a mistake. It’s the ultimate tool for non-committal creating.
Use it to decorate your journal or planner, create borders on artwork, or even make entire compositions. You can create geometric landscapes, abstract collages, or simple patterns just by tearing and sticking tape to a page. It requires no drawing or painting skills, just a willingness to play with color and shape.
Get Started Tip: On a blank page in a sketchbook, use different washi tapes to create a cityscape or a mountain range. Tear the tape to create rough, organic edges for the mountains, and cut it with scissors for the clean lines of buildings.
9. A Gel Printing Plate
Gel printing is a form of monoprinting that lets you create stunning, one-of-a-kind prints without a press. The "plate" is a squishy, gelatin-like slab that holds onto acrylic paint. You roll a thin layer of paint onto the plate, press stencils or natural objects (like leaves and feathers) into it to create texture, and then press a piece of paper on top to pull the print.
The magic of gel printing is in the layers and the "ghost prints" (the second, fainter print you can pull after the first). It's an incredibly intuitive and experimental process. The results are always a surprise, which is the perfect remedy for the pressure of perfection. The papers you create are beautiful on their own or can be used as incredible collage material.
Get Started Tip: Use a single color of acrylic paint and a leaf from your garden. Roll the paint onto the plate, press the leaf down firmly, then lift it off. You'll see the impression of the leaf. Now, press your paper onto the plate to pull your first print.
10. A Good Set of Fineliner Pens
Sometimes, the simplest tools are the most powerful. A set of black fineliner pens in various tip sizes is a cornerstone of any creative toolkit. They are perfect for doodling, journaling, intricate line drawings, or practicing patterns like Zentangle.
The act of simply making marks on a page—lines, dots, squiggles—can be a powerful way to get started when you feel blocked. You don't need an idea; you just need to move the pen. This simple action can often lead to more complex ideas organically. Fineliners offer precision and a satisfying, crisp line that can bring a sense of order to creative chaos.
Get Started Tip: Draw a random, looping scribble on a page (a "string"). Then, use your fineliners to fill in each of the resulting sections with a different repeating pattern (e.g., stripes, dots, cross-hatching, scales). This is a core concept of Zentangle, and it's incredibly relaxing.
11. Watercolor Pencils
Can't decide between drawing and painting? With watercolor pencils, you don't have to. These look and feel just like colored pencils, but they contain a water-soluble binder. You can draw with them to create rich, detailed images, and then go over your drawing with a wet brush to magically dissolve the pigment into fluid watercolor paint.
This hybrid medium offers the control of a pencil with the beautiful, painterly effects of watercolor. It’s a great way to ease into painting if you feel more comfortable with drawing. You can activate the entire drawing with water, or just select certain areas to turn into paint, creating a wonderful mixed-media effect.
Get Started Tip: Draw a simple object, like an apple. Use two or three different shades of red and yellow pencils to color it in, paying attention to light and shadow. Then, take a slightly damp (not soaking wet) brush and gently blend the colors together on the page.
12. Ink Pads and Stamps
There's an undeniable joy in the simple act of stamping. It’s immediate, it’s satisfying, and it allows you to create complex patterns and images with very little effort. You can start with pre-made rubber stamps, but for a deeper creative dive, try carving your own out of linoleum or soft rubber blocks.
Lino-carving is a subtractive process where you carve away the areas you don't want to print. It requires focus and results in a unique, handcrafted stamp that you can use over and over again. The process of carving is meditative, and the final reveal when you make that first print is always a thrill.
Get Started Tip: Start with a soft-cut rubber block (it’s easier to carve than traditional linoleum). Draw a very simple design, like a leaf or a geometric shape, and carefully carve away the negative space around it. Ink it up and stamp it on everything!
13. Collage Materials
Collage is the art of creative recycling. It involves cutting and pasting found materials—like old magazines, newspapers, book pages, ticket stubs, and fabric scraps—to create a new image. It completely bypasses the need for drawing or painting skills, focusing instead on composition, color, and texture.
This is a fantastic exercise for beating creative block because it’s about deconstruction and reconstruction. You're working with pre-existing images, which takes the pressure off creating something from scratch. It can be a way to visually brainstorm, create mood boards, or just make delightfully surreal and surprising juxtapositions.
Get Started Tip: Give yourself a constraint. For example, search through magazines and cut out only things that are the color blue, or only images of hands. Then, arrange your collection of cut-outs on a page to create a new, unified composition.
14. Metallic Leaf or Flakes
Want to add a touch of instant magic to almost any project? Metallic leaf (or the easier-to-use flake version) is your answer. A little bit of gold, silver, or copper can elevate a simple watercolor painting, a piece of clay jewelry, or a collage into something that feels precious and special.
Applying metallic leaf with a special adhesive (called "size") is a delicate process that feels like an ancient craft. The flakes are even simpler—just press them into a tacky surface like wet paint or glue. A little sparkle can be a great motivator and add a celebratory final touch that makes you feel proud of what you've created, no matter how simple.
Get Started Tip: Paint a simple abstract background with acrylics. While the paint is still a bit tacky, gently press some metallic flakes onto the surface with a dry brush. Once the paint is fully dry, use the brush to sweep away the excess flakes.
15. Air-Dry Foam Clay
If you find traditional clay a bit dense or messy, you have to try foam clay. This is a lightweight, air-dry modeling compound with a unique, slightly squishy texture made of tiny beads. It's incredibly easy to work with, sticks to itself (but not your hands), and can be used to cover and decorate other objects like boxes, frames, or jars.
It's a pure-fun, sensory material that feels like playing. It’s perfect for whimsical, cartoonish sculptures and 3D decorations. Because it’s so light and almost mess-free, it’s a great way to engage in some quick, low-stakes sculpting when you just need to make something silly and colorful to break out of a funk.
Get Started Tip: Get a multi-color pack and use it to cover a plain wooden pencil holder or a small cardboard box. Mix the colors to create new shades and press them onto the surface to create fun, bubbly patterns.
16. A Dedicated "Play" Sketchbook
This might be the most important supply of all. A dedicated sketchbook that is designated as a "messy" or "play" space is crucial. This is not the place for finished masterpieces; it's a judgment-free zone for swatching paints, testing pens, doodling mindlessly, pasting in collage scraps, and trying out ideas that might not work.
Having a space where you are expected to be imperfect gives you immense freedom. It removes the pressure that comes with a pristine, expensive sheet of paper. As my friend and mentor Goh Ling Yong often says, "Your sketchbook is a playground, not a gallery." Fill it with experiments, "ugly" art, and half-formed ideas. It is the engine of your creativity.
Get Started Tip: On the very first page, deliberately make a mess. Scribble with a crayon, make a big paint smudge, or spill a drop of coffee on it. This "ruins" the perfection of the book and gives you permission to use the rest of it freely.
The blank page doesn’t have to be your enemy. Think of it instead as an invitation—a playground waiting for you to show up. The secret to overcoming creative block isn't about finding one perfect idea; it's about giving yourself permission to explore, to make messes, and to fall in love with the process of creating for its own sake.
So, pick a supply from this list that sparks a little flicker of curiosity. Don't overthink it. Just gather your materials, put on some music, and let your hands lead the way.
Which of these supplies are you most excited to try? Do you have a go-to craft for beating creative block? Share your thoughts and creative experiments with us in the comments below
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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