Shop Small on Amazon!
Shop small on Amazon!
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Right now Amazon is promoting the small businesses selling in its store, and since we believe in supporting small businesses too, we want you to know about them.
During Amazon Prime Day, which starts today at 12 am Pacific Daylight Time and ends at 11:59 pm PDT on June 22, many of these businesses will be offering discounts on their wares. But to take advantage of their sales, you have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber.
Amazon Prime costs $12.99 a month or $119 a year. Its benefits include faster shipping on Amazon orders, discounts at Whole Foods, and access to Amazon’s streaming entertainment. You can also pick up a free 30-day trial of Prime here.
Click here to see Amazon’s featured small businesses and their Prime Day deals; see below for some of our favorite sellers of art and craft supplies:
Cruelty-free paintbrushes
Founded over 25 years ago in Howard Kaufman’s Princeton, New Jersey, basement, the Princeton Artist Brush Company is still a family-owned business. With a well-deserved reputation for high-quality products, it may be best known for its premier synthetic brushes, including these Heritage series synthetic sable brushes for watercolor.
Recyclable gift wrap
Stock up on high-quality cards, envelopes, and wrapping supplies at the one-stop paper store Note Card Café. Operated by the California small business Graphic Business Solutions, Note Card Café collaborates with artists to produce unique designs that are expertly printed and packaged. We like its rolls of Kraft wrapping paper, which come in a range of colors and patterns.
High-quality muslin
Whether used for pattern making, photography backdrops, or painting canvases, a good piece of muslin should be clean, easy to de-wrinkle, and showcase an even weave. The muslin sold by AK-Trading Co., a two-decade-old, family-owned business in Chatsworth, California, checks off all those boxes and more. Made of 100 percent cotton, it has a nice medium heft, and even comes finished with selvage edges. Choose from unbleached, white, or black.
DIY soap kits
Situated in the tall-pine country of Heber-Overgaard, Arizona, the small family-owned business Wild Herb Soap Co. produces handcrafted self-care products such as lotion, balms, and of course, soaps. While you can purchase finished products, we’re keen on their raw soap-making materials, from 100-percent natural beeswax pellets to well-sized palm kernel flakes.
Pro metal-working tools
PMC Supplies, based in Upstate New York, is a purveyor of tools to jewelry makers and metal workers from beginners to experts. They carry everything from professional-grade specialty items like graphite crucibles to all-inclusive jewelry-making kits for those just starting out.
Wild fabrics
Since 1983, the family-operated Fabric Empire has been creating unusual fabrics in all kinds of patterns. Think cow-print velvet, Froot Loop-colored and highly textured synthetic shag, and rose-hued embossed taffeta. In our book, this is the store to go for faux furs, sold by the yard and soft enough to sleep on. Where else will you find the perfect rainbow-striped, long-pile fake gorilla fur?
Frames and mats
The Display Guys, a family-owned company in business since 1999, is a great go-to to find just what you need to display your artworks, from photographs to prints. Frames are available in black, white, gray, and bronze, in wood, aluminum, and plastic, and in one dozen sizes, from 4-by-6 inches to 20-by-24 inches. They sell mat boards, too, including bulk packs of acid-free, precisely cut boards that will make any artwork look professionally put-together.
Heat-transfer vinyl sheets
Based out of Cedar City, Utah, FireFly Craft specializes in heat-transfer vinyl, which it sells by the roll or in convenient multicolor bundles. There are tons of color options to choose from, including fluorescents; most are compatible with cutting machines, so you can easily trace custom designs. We are fans of their flocked vinyl, which features a pleasingly soft, fuzzy texture on its exposed side.
Premium modeling and ceramics clay
Also in Utah, Artistic Industries is run by April Butterfield Simister and Michael Simister, who are growing their ceramics supply business with their three kids. (“A family that clays together stays together,” they have said.) Stock up on Laguna air-dry clay of different colors, from an electric brown to a speckled buff .
Industrial-strength gluing
Surebonder Adhesives began in 1968 as an eyelet and rivet distributor in a single-car garage in Wauconda, Illinois. Now, the family-owned business specializes in a different kind of adhesive tool: the glue gun. Its 60-watt cordless hot glue gun is one popular product to definitely check out. It heats up fast, feels comfortable in the hand, and comes with a stand designed to catch unwanted drips.
Glow-y paints and pigments
If luminescence is your thing, Glomania USA sells glow-in-the-dark, UV black light, and color-changing paints and pigments, both daytime visible and daytime invisible. Shop their store for glow-y art tools like black-light poster paints and nail art kits.
Sticky, eye-catching tape
These tapes are designed by Hoopologie, a self-described “DIY hula hoop supply company” and are used to decorate hula hoops, but honestly, they would make pretty great art materials too. The Boulder, Colorado business sells high tensile strength and heat-resistant electrical tape in wondrous colors like Royal Purple as well as truly gorgeous decorative tapes in pearlescent finishes. Many tapes change color depending on your viewing angle, which adds extra oomph to your projects.
Multicolor Miyuki seed beads
Colorado bead peddler Rockin Beads has been selling beads and other craft supplies for more than 10 years, and it remains one of the best places to find small beads from the Japanese bead manufacturing company Miyuki. These highly sought after glass beads come in all sorts of shapes, from triangles to droplets to hexagons; find all these and more on Rockin Beads’ Amazon storefront, in seductive colors such as Bisque White, Picasso Canary Yellow, and Amethyst Gold Luster.
Sterling silver fittings
California company Adabele specializes in quality jewelry-making supplies, including sterling silver fittings like lobster clasps, jump rings, and earring wires, as well as Swarovski and Preciosa crystal beads. Wholesale orders are welcome.
Super nice stamps
Up your inking game and snag some stamps from SniggleSloth, a hobby store based in Gold River, California. While it sells buttons, stencils, and other charming knickknacks, it’s best known for its rubber stamps, which are made with sturdy wood and deeply etched rubber. A cushion of foam in between makes for satisfyingly springy stamping. While you can purchase traditional, square-shaped stamps, we think the tall ones with sloth faces make for pretty cute desk accessories. Most stamps come in multiple sizes.
Bold beads
Based in Santa Monica, California, The Bead Chest imports beads and handicrafts from Africa, Nepal, and other parts of the world. If you are looking for, say, vintage Czech snake beads from Nigeria or vinyl beads from Ghana, this is the place.
Craft chipboard
Thunderbolt Paper carries papers of all sorts, but we are particularly enamored of their 5-by-7-inch, Kraft paper-colored cards and envelopes and their range of chipboard panels for crafting and bookbinding.
Peruvian alpaca wool
Products from Alpaca Warehouse travel from Peruvian artisans to the family-run brand’s operations in Gainesville, Florida, which originally got up and running with a shop right in Lima. Now is the time to stock up on its yarn, which is available in different weights and plenty of colors. A bestseller is its fingering yarn, sold in attractive hues from rose pink to emerald green.
