Best Paint by Numbers Kits for Gifts

By Simon I., co-founder, Paint Kit Studio. Published 2026-05-06.

Erin emailed me on December 23rd. The subject line said "PLEASE." Her father-in-law was about to fly in for Christmas, she'd left gift shopping until the last week, panicked, and remembered our kits. Could one possibly arrive by the 25th. (It could not, as a physical object. But the order confirmation print-out, tucked into a card with a photo of the design she picked, did the job. He opened that on Christmas morning, the kit landed two days later, and the next time Erin saw him he was halfway through painting it.)

I keep getting versions of Erin's email. Mid-December for the December holidays. Late April for Mother's Day. Mid-May for Father's Day. The pattern is reliable and I think I understand it now. People discover paint by numbers as a gift while looking for something that isn't generic, isn't a candle, isn't a mug, and isn't a third pair of socks. We're the not-that pile.

So this is what I tell people who land in my inbox asking which kit to gift for which person. It comes from shipping a lot of these and reading a lot of "they loved it" follow-up emails (and the occasional "they didn't open it" email, which I think about more). Pour a coffee.

Why does paint by numbers work as a gift?

Two things at once, is the short answer. The recipient gets hours of screen-free time, plus a finished piece of wall art they made themselves. Most gifts are one or the other. This one is both.

The thing I didn't expect when I started shipping these is the second-order effect. People who haven't painted before keep waiting for it to feel like work, and somehow it never does. Numbered guide takes the artistic decisions off the recipient before they ever pick up a brush. What's left is colour application, which turns out to be one of the calmer activities you can do with your hands. My wife paints kits while watching crime documentaries; she's finished about fifteen. Slow-Sunday-afternoon mode for her now.

The format also has weird staying power. Smithsonian Magazine on the original 1950s boom: "By 1954, the company had sold more than 12 million of the kits, according to a 2001 exhibition on the paint-by-number phenomenon by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History." (Dan Robbins, Who Launched the Paint-by-Number Craze in the 1950s, Has Died, Smithsonian Magazine, 2019, retrieved 6 May 2026.) Twelve million, before our parents were born. The format keeps working for the same reason it always has worked. Numbered guide handles the decisions. Painter brings the time. Wall art at the end.

The best paint by numbers kits by occasion

Different occasions want different design tones. Getting the tone wrong is the easiest way for a thoughtful gift to land flat. So this is what I tell people who email asking which way to lean.

For a birthday, match a known interest. A dog person gets a dog. A surfer gets a seascape. The custom-photo route is especially strong if you have a meaningful photo of theirs (their pet, their kid, a place they love).

For Christmas and December holidays, wintry mountain or snow-village scenes feel seasonal but read as wall art year-round. Custom kits made from a family photo are our biggest December category, and the orders pile up fastest in early December, which is also when our custom production team starts to sweat.

Mother's Day and Father's Day are two of the biggest gift occasions of the calendar, and the spend per gift is high. NRF's annual survey projects Mother's Day consumer spending will reach a record $38 billion this year, with shoppers budgeting around $284 per person. (Mother's Day Data and Trends, National Retail Federation, n.d., retrieved 6 May 2026.) For mums, flowers and coastal scenes are the safest picks. For dads, mountain and wildlife scenes outsell everything else by a wide margin. (More on the dad-specific picks in a second.)

Valentine's Day wants romantic but not corny. Sunset coastal scenes work better than literal hearts. Two kits to paint together is a date-night gift in itself.

Anniversary: custom kit made from a wedding photo or a photo of a place that means something to the couple. Consistently produces the strongest emotional reactions of any gift we ship. One customer named Marcus emailed me after his wife opened a custom kit of their first apartment. Said she cried for fifteen minutes. The opening-the-box video, which Marcus sent us with permission, is genuinely hard to watch without your eyes leaking. Hard to top, that one.

For sympathy or get-well, the "give them a quiet evening" framing matters most. Soft floral or garden subjects. Skip anything intensely cheerful or busy.

For retirement or someone with newly free time, a larger 36-colour kit gives them something structured to fill an afternoon. Works especially well for parents and grandparents whose calendars suddenly opened up.

For a teacher, colleague, or acquaintance, lean toward a simpler 24-colour kit in a universally appealing subject. Flowers, seascapes, animals. Custom kits are too personal for these relationships; pre-designed is the right call.

Who is paint by numbers a good gift for?

Wider than people guess. But not literally everyone, and I've gotten enough sad emails to know who not to gift one to.

The recipient profile that most reliably lights up: someone who says they "don't have a hobby." A surprising number of adults privately want a creative outlet but can't get past the I'm-not-artistic block. Numbered guide answers that block. The "I'm not an art person" objection doesn't survive contact with a finished kit, in my experience.

The other big one: TV-watchers. Painting is a hands-busy activity that pairs well with a podcast or a show in the background. Kit lets them have the show without feeling like the evening was wasted. Most of our customers paint while watching something. Bridgerton, true crime documentaries, Premier League. We hear about the watch list almost as often as we hear about the painting itself.

Anyone recovering from something also lands well. Surgery, grief, burnout, retirement. Anything that creates a stretch of suddenly empty afternoons. We've shipped a non-trivial number of "for my mum, post-cancer-treatment" kits over the years and the follow-up mail on those is consistently the best in our inbox. (One that stays with me: a daughter sent her mother a custom kit of the family dog while her mother was recovering from a hip replacement. The mother spent six weeks of immobility painting it. The mother emailed me directly afterward to say it was the only good thing about the recovery.)

Even experienced painters often enjoy a PBN kit as a "lazy painting" alternative to a blank canvas. Lower stakes, no design decisions. A few of our repeat customers are working artists who use kits as palate cleansers between commissions.

Who it doesn't land with. People who have explicitly said they don't enjoy crafts. Anyone with zero spare time. Very young children (kits are designed for ages 12 and up; for younger kids, pick designs with very large sections). I won't pretend otherwise. If your recipient has said "I am not a craft person" out loud in the last year, this is not the gift.

Custom kit or pre-designed: which is the better gift?

Most-asked gift question I get. Answer depends on your relationship and your timeline.

Pre-designed kits are faster (ship in 2 to 3 days), cheaper ($30 to $60 typical), and easier to pick. Browse the collection, pick a subject the recipient likes, order. Done. Pre-designed is the right call for most gifts, especially when the recipient is an acquaintance or a colleague or someone whose taste you don't know in detail.

Custom kits are made from a photo you upload at order. We trace and print the photo as a numbered canvas, mix the paint colours to match, ship the kit usually in 7 to 10 days. The rolled version (canvas + paints, you stretch or frame yourself) runs $35 to $45. The pre-stretched canvas version (ready to paint, ready to hang) runs $55 to $65. Custom is the right call when you have a meaningful photo and the relationship is close enough to justify the personal touch and you have at least 10 to 14 days of lead time. Spouses, parents, children, lifelong friends.

The emotional difference between the two categories is real, and it surprises gift-givers who haven't done it before. A pre-designed kit is a thoughtful gift. A custom kit of someone's late dog, or their childhood home, or their parents at their wedding, is the kind of gift people email us photos of, in tears, after they open it. (Marcus's wife, again. The opening-the-box video, which Marcus sent us with permission, is genuinely hard to watch without your eyes leaking.) Use that power carefully.

Option	Cost	Lead time	Best for
Pre-designed kit	$30 to $60	2 to 3 days	Most gifts. Acquaintances, colleagues, anyone you don't have a meaningful photo for.
Custom photo kit	$35 to $65	10 to 14 days	Spouses, parents, milestone gifts. Anyone you have a great photo of.

How do I pick the right design?

Start with the recipient's interests, not what looks good in your taste. Their kitchen, their phone wallpaper, their Instagram saves. The painting will end up on their wall, not yours. (I cannot stress this enough. The amount of customer mail I get that starts with "I picked a beautiful piece for my husband and now it's been in the closet for six months..." Always too late by the time I see it.)

Match the subject to a known interest. If they have dogs, pick from our Dogs collection. If they hike, lean toward Mountains & Lakes. If they have a beach house, Seascapes. The closer the subject is to something they already love, the higher the chance the painting actually gets started after the kit is opened. Started, not abandoned.

Lean toward beginner difficulty unless you know they paint. Our 24-colour starter kits are designed for the person who has never picked up a brush. Easier sections, more forgiving design, lower abandonment rate. 36 and 48-colour kits are for someone who has finished at least one PBN and wants more challenge.

Pick a colour palette that suits their room. If you've been to their place, what colours dominate? A painting in those tones will end up on their wall. A painting in clashing tones will end up in a closet. (Cf. the husband above.)

For older recipients, our adults-specific selection has larger-section designs that are easier on the eyes and the hands. For art-savvy recipients, Portraits or Cities & Villages read as more "serious" subjects.

How long will the kit take to paint?

Asked because gift-givers worry the kit will overwhelm the recipient. It will not. A 24-colour beginner kit on the standard 16 x 20 inch canvas runs 8 to 12 hours total. Spread across one to three weeks at half an hour per evening (which is what most painters actually do), that's a casual two-week project. 36-colour intermediate at the same canvas size runs 12 to 20 hours. 48-colour advanced on a larger canvas can run 18 to 30 hours.

Communicate this to the recipient if it helps. The fear that the kit is a 100-hour commitment is a real reason kits sit unopened. Tell them "this is a casual three-week project" and the math suddenly looks reasonable. (One customer of ours, a high-school chemistry teacher named Aaron, painted his first kit while marking lab reports. Two birds, three weeks, one finished landscape on the staffroom wall.)

Should I include a frame with the gift?

Often skip. Sometimes yes.

The case for a frame in the box. Gift feels finished. Recipient doesn't have to hunt for one. A $20 to $30 stock floating frame from any craft store is a small extra spend that visibly upgrades the package. The case against. Their wall colours and decor preferences may not match your frame pick, and a wrong frame is harder to return than no frame at all. I have a small frame graveyard in our office of customer-returned floating frames that didn't suit the room they were destined for. Sad pile.

The middle path I usually suggest. Print our framing guide and slip it in the box, or include a small note pointing to it. The recipient picks their own frame at their own pace, and you've signalled "this is real wall art, not just a craft project."

How should I present the gift?

Three small touches that consistently land.

A handwritten card. Sounds basic. Most gift-givers skip it. The card is what makes the gift feel personal even when the kit is pre-designed. We don't currently print or include gift messages, so the move is to buy a small blank card, write something in your own hand, and either tuck it into the kit when it arrives or include it inside your own gift-wrapping. The handwritten note is what makes the gift land.

A printed photo of the design. Especially useful when the kit is shipping after the gift-giving event. Tape it to the front of a smaller "the kit is on its way" card. The recipient sees the design, knows what's coming, and the surprise still hits. (Erin's hack from the opening of this post. It works.)

A small extras bundle. A desk lamp, a tabletop easel, a single decent floating frame. Turns the gift into a "ready to start" bundle. The recipient doesn't have to think; they can sit down and paint. Small budget difference, large completion-rate difference. The kits that get finished are the ones where the recipient doesn't have to source a single extra thing.

Frequently asked questions

What if the recipient has never painted before?

Then a beginner 24-colour kit is exactly the right pick. The whole format is designed for someone who has never held a brush. If they want a primer, point them to our Complete Beginner's Guide after they open the kit.

Can I add a gift message?

Not from us, but the workaround is easy. We don't currently print or include gift messages with the kit. The simplest path is to buy a small blank card, write your own message, and tuck it inside the box when the kit arrives, or fold it into your own gift-wrapping. Most painters tell us the handwritten note is what made the gift feel personal.

What if they don't end up liking it?

Honestly, this happens occasionally and it's fine. The kit is small enough to gift forward to someone else (a niece, a coworker), and the canvas-on-stretcher is reusable as a regular blank canvas if they have other painters in the house. If a kit arrives damaged or with a paint pot dried out, we replace the parts free. Email us.

What's the most-gifted age range?

Wider than people guess. Our gift-recipient distribution is roughly 20 percent under 30, 40 percent 30 to 60, 40 percent over 60. The over-60 share is heavy because retired parents and grandparents are who many of our customers gift to. Kits work for anyone with patience and the use of their hands.

Can I gift-wrap it?

Yes. The standard kit ships in a flat brown box that is plain enough to gift-wrap directly. Add wrapping paper, a ribbon, a card. The box itself is unobtrusive enough that most gift-givers wrap on arrival without issue.

Ready to find the perfect gift?

Browse the full paint by numbers collection for the broadest range. Most-gifted categories: Animals, Flowers, Seascapes, and Dogs. For larger-format anchor pieces, Mountains & Lakes and Portraits work well.

For the most personal gift, turn a meaningful photo into a custom kit. Family portrait, pet, wedding, vacation memory. Allow 10 to 14 days lead time.

For the recipient who has already finished one of our kits, our guides on framing and getting clean lines make great pair-with reading.

Last updated: 2026-05-06.