How to Papercraft on a Budget

Papercrafting is essentially cutting shapes out of paper and gluing them together to make a three dimensional figure. It's cheaper than other creative crafts like carpentry and painting, and requires very little "extra" to buy on top of usual office supplies. With a growing swath of paper templates online, papercrafting is turning into a fun activity of growing popularity. 

Materials

The most basic crafts need only four things: paper, a printer, glue, and a pair of scissors. Those that are starting out with lighter and smaller figures can skim by with these four materials, but as you papercraft more and create increasingly complex figures, an upgrade of two of these resources are in order.

Cardstock

Designers build models and create papercraft templates with the assumption that the papercrafter will use "card stock" instead of regular copy paper. Card stock is heavier, stiffer, thicker, and less susceptible to bending, which allows more complex papercraft models to be constructed without worrying about its imminent collapse. Card stock is a more technical term for paper that is heavier and thicker than the usual copy paper, and each sheet has around the same thickness of a good index card - hence the name.

Manufacturers measure this heavier paper by the ream, and most card stock reams are in the range of 80 - 110lb (35-50kg) per ream. Generally the thicker, the better, but costs may go up as well. Although you can buy this in bulk from the internet, it may be more convenient (and allow a better-informed decision) to go to your local office supply store instead.

Knives

Papercrafters on the internet usually refer to X-Acto knives as the tool of choice, but some are far from their local craft store and repurpose a seemingly cruder tool: the utility knife. To keep a good sharpness to the somewhat quick to dull knives, purchase the segmented or "snap-off" utility knives. These cheaper, retractable knives come with the bonus of not needing a case and avoiding accidental injury created by X-Acto knives.