• Paper
• Acrylic paint
• Old loyalty card
• A couple of lids
• Black biro
• White paint pen - not really an essential but really nice to have

Honestly any paper will do. Standard cheap copy paper is absolutely fine and available in most supermarkets. And any sketchbook will do too. I like this A4 Seawhite sketchbook.

My favourite paper to use is a thicker watercolour paper because it takes paint and other materials beautifully - which is lovely if you want to frame or gift your doodle.

I love Daler Rowney ‘Aquafine’ which is available from Amazon, Jacksons Art and lots of other art stores.

I also LOVE making hand-made Happy Doodle greetings cards so always have a pack of blank cards with envelopes handy. You can find these in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Medium body (soft) and fluid (thin) paints work best for the spreading technique.

My favourites are High Viscosity Studio Acrylics by Peobo -they are labelled ‘transparent’, ‘opaque’ or 'fluorescent', experiment with them all.

I also love Basics Acrylic Fluid by Liquitex which are quite runny. A little goes a long way.

You'll find acrylic paints at Amazon, Jacksons Art, Hobby Craft, and lots of other art stores.

There are so many things you can spread paint with and my favourite is with an old loyalty card - which is free!

If you don't have an old card lying around you can buy blank ID cards easily. Or you can try a windscreen ice scraper, a dough scraper, or anything with a flat edge.

There are tools that are specifically made for the job though. A Colour Shaper/Silicone Paint Brush looks like a paintbrush but instead of bristles it has a rubber spreader.

Or there's a Catalyst Blade/Wedge which looks like a a chunky dough scraper, is lovely to hold. and some come with a ridged edge for creating textures.

Printing circles with lids is a technique I use ALL the time - but almost anything can become a printing tool!

Use your 'Happy Doodling Eyes' and see what you can find in and around your home that might print an interesting shape. Here are some examples:

• Round plastic lids from milk bottles, vitamin jars and laundry tubs etc
• Small lids from sauce bottles, fat marker pens, slim pens.
• Finished sellotape middles, straws, screw heads, lego bricks, kids wooden building blocks, cookie cutters....

Once you start looking, you'll find printing tools everywhere!

I'd love to hear about your interesting finds, drop me a message or tag me on instagram @kateelkington_art using #keephappydoodling

Dotting tools are really just another kind of printing tool, the cheapest and easiest to find being a cotton ear bud/Q-tip. Just dip it into paint and dot onto your doodle!

You can also purchase dotting tools, sometimes called dot brushes, that are a bit more decorative than just a simple dot. They come in various designs, often mandala designs and tiny flower shapes:

Set of 5 Mandala Dot Brush Tools

I've tried lots of ink pads over the years, and the quality really does vary.

My absolute favourites are Versa Fine Clair by TSUKINEKO, - they're beautifully juicy, come in gorgeous colours, give much cleaner, crisper prints and are well worth the investment if you enjoy stamping.

If I was going to pick only ONE colour of ink pad i'd choose black, because it will print over any other colour, it makes all the other colours pop, and it always looks striking.

Hand-made stamps - these are hand-cut either from any standard rubber eraser, or from a rubbery sheet of Speedy-Carve Printing Block, - prices really vary so I would shop around.

You can use a Craft Knife or a Lino Cutting Tool to cut/carve out your design, and I recommend doing this on a cutting mat or a piece of card.

Ready Made Stamps come in a huge range of styles and designs including self-inking stamps. It's taken me some time to find and collect my favourites, so just keep searching and adding to your collection over time. Below are some options to get you started:

Round Geometric Stamps

Square Dots Stamp

Floral Pattern Stamps

Sunshine Smiley Stamp

Letters Stamps

Mini Letters Stamps

Self-Inking Set Of 5 Stamps

My all-time favourite self-inking ready made stamp is the Grid Roller Stamp (which I can now only find on Temu, not somewhere I usually shop at for ethical reasons)

There are literally hundreds of stencils to choose from! You can search for anything you can think of but my favourite searches are:

• Geometric stencils
• Floral stencils
• Patterned stencils
• Mandala stencils

• Or simply search 'STENCILS' in Ebay or Amazon and see what catches your eye.

You can often find stencils in packs and you can even design your own custom stencils.

Stencil Brushes are used with paint. These stiplling brushes have very short dense bristles and work best with a minimal amount of paint and lots of gentle tapping on your stencil to build up the colour.

Pack of 6 Stencil Brushes

Sponge applicators are my preferred way to stencil - less messy! These are used with the coloured ink pads. It's best to have a different sponge applicator for each colour ink pad being used so that you don't transfer colours and make them 'muudy'. Luckily you can buy packs of sponge applicators very inexpensively.

Pack of 20 Sponge Applicators

Any pens and pencils you can find around your home will do! Biro's, highlighters, markers, HB pencils, crayons - just collect everything.

There are also some nice extra's you can buy too.

Posca Paint Pens - these pens are filled with liquid acrylic paint and are opaque and permanent so will go over anything you've already created on your doodle. They come in loads of colours and a choice of nib size. My favourite is a white medium nibbed paint pen for adding marks and patterns on the darker areas of my doodles. I also like the wide nib pens for making chunky dashes.

A China Marker is a waxy pencil that once down on paper will not budge or smudge. It's smoothness makes it perfect for creating big, expressive squiggles, which feel wonderful to make! I mainly use black because I like the strong contrast against the colourful background, but you can get them in other colours.

Water Soluable Colour Pencils are another favourite because they ar so versatile. You can use them simply as pencils, or you can smudge, spread and blend your pencil marks with a wet paint brush.

Neon Dot stickers, iridescent stickers, smiley stickers, or even stick on jewels are a really easy way to add some final details. You can buy shapes and dots in any size or colour, or cut your own custom shapes from larger sticker sheets.

Washi Tape also comes in a huge range of colours, patterns and thicknesses, often in packs like this 48 Rolls Of 8mm Decorative Washi Tape

My favourite tape to use is Fluorescent Transparent Highlighter Tape because being transparent you can see some of the doodle underneath.