Crafty Arts

What to know about shopping at Crafty Arts

Crafty Arts is a UK art and craft supplies specialist that has been trading for over 30 years, covering painting, drawing, illustration, and mixed-media from entry-level hobby kits to professional-grade materials. The site organises its catalogue around medium — Watercolour, Oil, Acrylic, and Pastels & Charcoal — so ranges such as Watercolour Paint, Watercolour Pads, Watercolour Brushes, and Watercolour Mediums sit together in logical clusters rather than being buried under brand pages. Alongside paints and surfaces, the shop stocks pens, markers, pencils, portfolios, easels, and Staedtler Fimo modelling clay for polymer work.

Brand stockists include Winsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney, Derwent, Faber-Castell, Royal Talens, Sakura, Copic, and Staedtler, with the premium Jackson's Art Supplies range also represented for own-label professional quality at a lower price than branded equivalents. This mix matters because beginners tend to start on cheaper hobby paints that dry patchy, while pros need lightfastness ratings and single-pigment colours that only the heritage brands provide — Crafty Arts carries both ends of the scale, which makes it a one-stop shop rather than forcing a switch between retailers as skill level progresses.

Free standard delivery kicks in at £45 and free next-day delivery at £75, which is unusually generous for a specialist craft retailer and makes consolidating supply top-ups into a single larger order the obvious way to avoid postage costs. The Reward Points scheme earns points on every qualifying purchase that convert into future discounts, and gift vouchers are available for occasions when the recipient would rather choose their own materials. Sales tend to cluster around Black Friday, Boxing Day, and the January post-Christmas reset for new hobbyists, with Plaid and Staedtler Fimo bundles running promotions at other times during the year.

A practical tip when ordering: paint and mediums behave differently across ranges, so match the pad or canvas surface to the paint type (watercolour paper for watercolour, oil-primed canvas for oil, acrylic pads for acrylic) to avoid the most common beginner mistake of a medium beading on the wrong surface. The Inspiration & Tutorials section on the site is a useful free reference for technique, and the Help Centre covers returns, delivery thresholds, and account queries if you would rather not call.

— MoneySaverCodes Team