A friend once joked that visiting my house was like visiting a stationery shop. It’s kind of true – the kids even ask if they can “shop in my cupboard” 🙂

I’ve always loved stationery and they love it too.

I think because of that I like to buy new things “for the kids” 😉 If I like the stuff, we keep buying it; if not, we move on.

We’ve tried all sorts of crayons, markers, pencil crayons, pastels (oooh, pastels – we all LOVE pastels) and these are our absolute favourites:

1. Staedtler markers

We received our first pack of these (12-pack) at the end of 2012 and we have about 6 left that still work. These things never go dry. The big packs cost R70 at Pick and Pay and are WELL worth it. I tell everybody to not waste time with any other markers – buy a big pack of these.

Obviously the packet is long since in the bin but because we’ve lost/ dried some of ours, I saw these small packs of 6 at CNA the other day for R20 each. A bargain. Go get some!

2. Bic soft colouring pencils

I discovered these about three years ago and guys, the heavens sang. They are delightful to use – soft and so easy. You won’t want to stop.

I love that they’re nice and wide for little (and my) fingers and they come in a box with a pencil sharpener which I appreciate. They’re R17 a box and if I give a colouring book for a present, I usually add one of these boxes too.

Go get yourself a box – and come tell me how much you love using them.

We’ve had fancy pencil crayons (Melissa and Doug), and everything in between, and these are the ones my kids love the most.

My one and only gripe is that they only come in boxes of 8.

3. Oil pastels

I personally like Staedtler’s three-sided pastels the best but my kids used these Colleen ones at school last year and so my Staedtler ones have been rejected (left to me!)

The kids tell me they like the way they shade without making their fingers dirty 🙂

4. Roll-up crayons

My kids aren’t fussy about these crayons – they like any brand.

I’ve bought sets of 8 in a pack and bigger packs like these – they like them all. This set has gold, silver crayons too which particular delighted my two.

You need to put strong boundaries in place because my children like to twist the entire crayon out, the crayon breaks and then you can’t roll it back in again.

5. Marlin metallic pencil crayons

I’ve only ever seen these Marlin ones at a small stationery shop in an even smaller shopping centre. I bought my box for R12 which was a mistake because next time I went back they were about R30.

These go very nicely with the metallic markers from Staedtler or Rolfes.

Remember you can buy a pad of black paper or cardstock and suddenly the world is a happier place because you’re writing in fun colours that stand out so beautifully on the dark paper.

Now you can see I can talk about stationery all the day long. Would you like me to do more posts like this?

Chances are if it exists, I’ve tried it 😮

I do have one more planned for kids – a part 2 to showcase some more stuff we love and basically how I keep them entertained a lot of the time. And maybe one with MY favourite stationery 🙂 We might need a part 1 – 3. Ha!

What are your kids’ favourite stationery?

PS do you know how you remember if stationery is with an e or an a? Envelopes start with an e 🙂