Top 17 Pantry-Sourced Craft Supplies to create Art with Unexpected Textures at home
Are you staring at a blank canvas, feeling a familiar pang of creative block? You’ve got the urge to make something beautiful, something tangible, but your usual art supplies just aren’t sparking joy. What if the secret to unlocking a new dimension in your art isn’t in a specialty store, but hiding in plain sight, right behind the cereal and canned tomatoes?
Welcome to the world of pantry art! Your kitchen is an untapped treasure trove of textures, colors, and materials just waiting to be transformed. Using everyday food items as art supplies is not only incredibly accessible and budget-friendly, but it also encourages a playful, experimental approach to creating. It’s about connecting with your materials in a new way, engaging more than just your sense of sight.
Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe that creativity is an essential ingredient in a fulfilling life, and it can be found everywhere. This guide will walk you through 17 unexpected craft supplies from your pantry that can help you create stunning, deeply textured art. Get ready to raid your cupboards and see your kitchen in a whole new light!
1. Uncooked Rice
A true classic for a reason, uncooked rice is one of the most versatile textural elements you can find. Its small, hard grains create a bumpy, pointillist effect when glued to a surface. Whether you use long-grain, short-grain, or wild rice, each type offers a slightly different look and feel.
The real magic happens when you add color. To dye rice, simply place it in a resealable bag with a few drops of food coloring and a teaspoon of white vinegar (to set the color). Shake vigorously until the grains are evenly coated, then spread them on a baking sheet to dry completely. You can create a full rainbow of colors to use in mosaics, collages, or for adding a pop of 3D texture to a painting.
Pro Tip: Use a clear-drying PVA glue and apply it to your surface first. Then, generously sprinkle the rice over the glue. Once dry, gently shake off the excess. This method is perfect for creating textured backgrounds or filling in specific shapes in a design.
2. Dried Beans, Peas, and Lentils
Step aside, rice—the entire legume family is here to play. The sheer variety of dried beans, peas, and lentils is an artist’s dream. You have the smooth, ovular shape of kidney beans, the tiny, colorful discs of lentils, the satisfying roundness of chickpeas, and the speckled beauty of pinto beans. Each one is a unique building block for your art.
These items are perfect for creating bold, chunky mosaics. The different shapes and natural colors—from deep black beans to vibrant green split peas and earthy red lentils—can be arranged to form intricate patterns or pictorial scenes on a sturdy base like cardboard or a wood panel. This is a fantastic sensory art activity for all ages.
Example Idea: Sketch a simple landscape on a piece of thick cardboard. Use green lentils for grassy fields, blue-hued beans for a river, and a mix of brown and black beans for mountains. The result is a tactile piece of art that’s as fun to touch as it is to look at.
3. Pasta of All Shapes
From the elegant ridges of rotini to the delicate curves of macaroni and the fun shape of bow-tie pasta, the pasta aisle is a goldmine of structural and textural possibilities. Pasta is essentially a ready-made, sculptable material that can be painted, glued, and arranged into incredible forms.
Before using, you can paint the pasta with acrylics and let it dry, or incorporate it into a piece and paint the entire composition at once. Spaghetti and linguine are excellent for creating straight lines, rays of sun, or even hair on a portrait. Shaped pasta can be used to build anything from jewelry and ornaments to detailed architectural collages.
Creative Use: Create a stunning, textured mandala by gluing different pasta shapes in a radial pattern on a canvas. Paint the finished design in a single metallic color, like gold or silver, to unify the different shapes and create a sophisticated, sculptural piece.
4. Salt (Coarse and Table)
Salt is a powerhouse of texture. Fine table salt, when mixed with glue or thick paint, creates a gritty, sandpaper-like finish. It’s perfect for adding the texture of sand to a beach scene or a subtle roughness to an abstract piece.
Coarse sea salt or kosher salt is where things get really exciting, especially when paired with watercolors. Lightly wet your watercolor paper and apply your colors. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle the coarse salt over the top. As the paint dries, the salt crystals will absorb the pigment, creating stunning, starburst-like patterns and a delicate, crystalline texture. Once completely dry, just brush the salt away.
5. Sugar (Granulated and Brown)
Like salt, granulated sugar can be used to create a fine, sparkly texture. When sprinkled over wet glue, it creates a glistening effect that’s perfect for winter scenes or fantasy art. You can dye it with food coloring just like rice for an even wider range of creative options.
Brown sugar offers a completely different vibe. Its clumpy, moist texture provides a crumbly, earthy feel. It’s fantastic for representing soil, crumbling rock, or adding a warm, organic texture to mixed-media art. Be mindful that using sugar may attract ants, so it’s best to seal the final piece thoroughly with a clear sealant spray.
6. Coffee Grounds
That leftover puck from your morning espresso is pure artistic gold. Dried, used coffee grounds provide a dark, granular texture that is second to none for depicting soil, stone, or rustic surfaces. The grounds can be mixed into acrylic mediums, gesso, or PVA glue to create a thick, textural paste that can be spread with a palette knife.
Beyond texture, coffee also acts as a natural pigment. You can brew a very strong pot of coffee and use it as a watercolor paint or a dye to beautifully stain paper, giving it an antique, sepia-toned look. The subtle aroma it leaves behind is a lovely bonus for the senses.
7. Tea Leaves
If coffee grounds are bold and rustic, tea leaves are their delicate and refined cousin. Empty the contents of a few tea bags onto a plate—you’ll find a fine, fragrant material perfect for adding subtle, organic texture. The varied colors, from the black of English breakfast to the green of sencha, offer a lovely natural palette.
Sprinkle dry tea leaves over wet paint or glue to create the effect of foliage on miniature trees, grassy fields in a diorama, or simply to add a soft, earthy layer to a collage. Like coffee, steeped tea also makes a wonderful natural paint or paper stain.
8. Cornmeal or Polenta
For a texture that perfectly mimics fine sand, look no further than cornmeal or its coarser cousin, polenta. Its uniform, sunny-yellow grain is ideal for creating desert landscapes, beach scenes, or adding a soft, sandy finish to any project.
To use it, apply a layer of glue to your desired area and sprinkle the cornmeal on top, tapping off the excess. For a more durable finish, you can mix it directly into paint. This not only adds texture but also gives the paint a lovely, matte quality.
9. Rolled Oats
The flaky, irregular shape of rolled oats provides a wonderfully soft, layered texture. It’s an amazing material for representing animal fur, bird feathers, fluffy clouds, or the thatched roof of a cottage.
Oats can be applied loose over glue or mixed into a thick paint or modeling paste. Because they are quite absorbent, they will soak up the color of the paint, creating a cohesive and beautifully textured surface. I find this technique particularly effective for abstract art where the focus is purely on form and texture.
10. Spices (Paprika, Turmeric, Cinnamon)
Your spice rack is a palette of vibrant, natural pigments. Spices are a triple threat: they provide color, a fine and subtle texture, and a wonderful aromatic experience. The brilliant yellow of turmeric, the rich red of paprika, and the warm brown of cinnamon can be used as "paints."
Mix the spices with a small amount of water to form a paste, or blend them into a clear glue or acrylic medium. Use them to paint directly onto paper or to add colored, textural accents to a larger piece. Creating with spices is a truly multisensory art form.
11. Flour
While flour on its own is a bit too fine for texture, it’s the ultimate binder. By mixing flour, salt, and water, you can create your very own salt dough—a fantastic, inexpensive, and non-toxic modeling clay. Sculpt it, bake it at a low temperature to harden it, and then paint your creations.
Flour can also be used to create a DIY "impasto" medium. Mix a small amount of all-purpose flour into your acrylic paint to thicken it significantly. This allows you to create bold, three-dimensional brushstrokes and heavy textures, similar to what you’d achieve with expensive professional mediums.
12. Popcorn Kernels
Unpopped popcorn kernels are wonderfully smooth, rounded, and uniform. Their teardrop shape and golden-yellow color make them a fantastic element for creating mosaics with a cobblestone-like effect. They can be glued down individually to create intricate patterns.
For a fun twist, try painting the kernels in various colors before gluing them down. Their hard, non-porous surface takes acrylic paint well. They are perfect for kids’ crafts, creating decorative borders on picture frames, or filling in large areas of a collage with a bold, bumpy texture.
13. Dried Herbs
Go beyond the spice powders and explore the textural beauty of dried, leafy herbs like rosemary, thyme, or oregano. The tiny "leaves" and stems add a delicate, complex texture that is perfect for representing foliage in landscapes, undergrowth in a forest scene, or adding a fragile, organic element to abstract art.
Carefully sprinkle the herbs over a thin layer of wet glue. Because they are so lightweight, it’s best to work on a flat surface and allow the glue to dry completely before moving the piece. The subtle, savory scent is an added bonus that connects the artwork back to its humble, natural origins.
14. Seeds (Poppy, Sesame, Sunflower)
The world of seeds offers an incredible spectrum of textures. Tiny black poppy seeds create a dense, stippled effect, almost like fine black sand. White sesame seeds provide a similar texture with a brighter look.
Larger seeds, like sunflower or pumpkin seeds, can be used individually as mosaic tiles. Their distinct shapes and patterns can be arranged to form flower petals, animal scales, or geometric designs. As with many other items on this list, they can be used in their natural state or painted for more colorful results.
15. Food Coloring
While not a textural element on its own, food coloring is the master key that unlocks the full potential of many other pantry supplies. It’s your tool for transforming plain rice, pasta, salt, and sugar into a vibrant, custom-colored palette.
A few drops can turn a mundane staple into a brilliant art material. Having a basic set of red, yellow, green, and blue on hand allows you to mix any color you can imagine. It’s an essential, inexpensive addition to your pantry art toolkit.
16. Cornstarch
Cornstarch is a secret weapon for creating unique textures and materials. Its most famous application is making "oobleck"—a fascinating non-Newtonian fluid. Simply mix cornstarch with water (roughly a 2:1 ratio) for a sensory material that acts like a solid when you apply pressure and a liquid when you let it go.
For more permanent art, cornstarch can be mixed with PVA glue to create a smooth, puffy paint that dries into a raised, matte texture. It’s also an excellent thickener for tempera or acrylic paints, giving them more body without changing the color as much as flour might.
17. Vegetable Oil
Oil and water don’t mix, and you can use this simple scientific principle to create beautiful, unpredictable patterns in your art. This resist technique works beautifully with watercolors or watered-down food coloring.
Start by dabbing or drizzling a small amount of vegetable or olive oil onto a piece of heavy paper (like watercolor paper or cardstock). Then, brush your water-based paint over the entire surface. The paint will be repelled by the oil, creating fascinating bubbles and organic-looking patterns where the oil was applied. It’s a wonderful way to create marbled backgrounds or abstract water effects. As an artist who appreciates the process, much like Goh Ling Yong, I find this technique to be a beautiful dance between control and chance.
Your Kitchen Is Your Studio
The next time inspiration strikes, I challenge you to look beyond your traditional art supplies. Open your cupboards, explore your spice rack, and see the artistic potential in the everyday items that nourish you. Creating with pantry-sourced materials is a reminder that art isn't about having the "right" tools; it's about seeing the world with curious and creative eyes.
This approach strips art-making back to its playful, experimental roots. It’s sustainable, accessible, and a wonderful way to connect with your creativity on a new level. So go ahead, make a mess, and discover the incredible textures waiting in your kitchen.
What are you excited to create first? Will you design a mosaic with beans, paint with spices, or craft a textured landscape with coffee and oats? Share your pantry art creations on social media with the hashtag #GohLingYongPantryArt—we would be absolutely thrilled to see the masterpieces you cook up
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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