Top 5 Ikea Items For Art Studio/Craft Room

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#watercolor #artistsofyoutube #art #mixedmedia #iritlandgrafart #intuitivewatercolor

Hey everyone! In today's video I'm sharing my top 5 picks from Ikea. These are items I have had for years and have served me as a scrapbooker, artist, crafter & mom of crafty kids. Enjoy!

0:00 Intro
4:20 Alex drawers
9:00 Drawer Organizer
10:24 Raskog
12:26 Sunnersta cups
15:57 Kvissle Paper Holder

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Hi! My name is Irit Landgraf, I am a watercolor and mixed media artist based in Austria (originally from Israel). My style is colorful, modern, whimsical and I particularly enjoy painting abstract florals.
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[SUSSDUE]

Being Swedish I have to say I am delighted for once to hear Ikea pronounced almost perfekt! I understand it is not an easy name to say in English, but to us it is rather fun to always hear ” Aykeyah” rather than ”I” like i in the word ” in”as you said it. And you also got Råskog right when you did a more german pronounciation. I really can understand the Ikea names can be tricky to say for non Scandinavians especially when we have three odd letters, å, ä, ö😃 The names are usually place names, like the plastic cup, Sunnersta, is an area in my hometown of Uppsala.
I agree the large Alex drawers are great and I love mine . I am lucky enough to have some vintage printer drawers and plan chests but I have to say Ikea really got ut right w Alex and I would glady have one more. It is a shame there are hardly any Ikea furniture made of proper wood anymore, just laminate and/ or mdf. It was easier when so many more of Ikeas furniture in the seventies to the nineties were made of wood, they were much easier to adapt.
I agree the Råskogs second and third trays are difficult to get into. I constantly reorganize mine but the items on the lower trays/ shelves tend to be forgotten! Thank you for a very informative video and it was so nice to see more of your studio!

[michemman]

Dear Irit and good artistic people....
First of all, Thanks Irit for this video and disclaimer about IKEA products. They are fast, lightweight, easily bought, but assembling them often means a marriage breakdown! I warn you in advance. Some things are not easy!
I like to do it slowly. I have a few ideas below, on how to make things last

I used to be a woodwork teacher, so here are some environmental tips;

Being conscious of when and where IKEA are growing new forests as projects to restore habitats, is viable.
Go for; One tree grown for every one cut.
or use products from select cut plantations, which means they pick say 10 trees to cut and leave 3 standing to grow.

Hardwood forests take 80-100 of years to grow to cut. Most old furniture are hardwoods. Tough, heavy, repairable, long lasting. My favourite! Nothing in IKEA is made from hardwoods.

Pine forests take 35 years to cut for harvest. All Ikea products that are solid are pine, and dark in colour, are simply stained, and waxed. They dent easily but are strong over lengths.

Hemp is a good product to use, vary quick to harvest. Toilet paper and writing paper is now being made from hemp or stone! We will see this as a future. Also fungi mycelium is a viable product, of the future, as mycelium can be trained, grown, moulded into shapes, quickly becoming new building materials for furniture too, load bearing. These three materials are the future!

Complete Pine forests are cut to be totally mulched to make paper and boards.
Any compressed board, is made of mulched fibres, with toxic glues like formaldehyde, it has a short life, due to moisture, rain, spills, it is often brittle and can break with weight or force, then more glue to laminate it.
So, for a bit more life out of your boards, on the raw edges of the boards, the insides, use some PVA glue on your finger to evenly spread over it to form a layer, it acts like a primer, it makes it a little less prone to breaking, and it seals it from moisture, a couple of coats.
Let each raw edge dry to touch. Then screw boards together! Be mindful to not jam something, together, sometimes you may have something left or right, or upside down. It will break near edges with force as it is brittle.
If you can find another product or way, choose that instead. When people cut these boards in the factories, they can get cancer from the glues, smells, fibres.

Using bamboo is grown in 8 years to cut and is very strong for blocks, and is good for cooking areas for knives. It can go over longer distances now, as they are "laminated as widening joints". Lots of great tools made from bamboo. A good choice.

Buy recycled timber furniture, that may be heavy, but it is passed to 3- 5 families in it's life it is worth restoring pieces and a profit of double can be made! This is one of my favourite options.

Finding solid timber furniture on the side of the road or at rubbish tips and learning simple repairs is fun.

Table tops need to be planed, never sanded! We use a little tool called a cabinet scraper!

Learning old skills to restore furniture, and joining woodwork clubs, if you don't want to spend much money. Make it! Fix it. Draw it. Create an idea. Most joining fees are only 35 -50 dollars a year. All the tools, timber and helpers are there!

Luckily Ikea is listening to the people, so some of these values are now being used to market better products, environmentally, responsibly and ethically.
Spare joinery parts are at the front of Ikea stores!
Ikea uses pine forests in Scandinavia to cut, so it is best to use bamboo or solid timber when you can.

In kindred spirit,
Eliza
Dulwich Hill, Australia xx
Wed 15th of June 2022 ; 8:24pm

[dawnreaume]

I don’t know if anyone else suggested this but you can spray paint your cart to be white!
You can also spray paint your metal pole to be gold or black or any color you like just make sure and buy spray paint for metal!
Thank you for all your great ideas!

[jennw]

Irit, you are inspiring me so much. I have a lovely large apartment with beautiful light, but just one bedroom. I paint or draw in my kitchen or dining room (kitchen is better when I'm splashing paint everywhere!) but haven't made a proper art space in this home, since I wasn't doing any when I moved in. It's compounded by the fact I don't really even have a proper computer/desk space here at home -- I keep much of my stuff at my actual office, but have needed to get a better setup at home for years.

I have acquired so many supplies, but have made little effort to organize them sensibly. I have just used whatever bins or boxes were handy when the piles started falling over. But it's been such a big job to sort out what furniture I might keep or get rid of and how I might arrange the dining room sensibly... I feel like I might need to get a smaller table for eating, maybe ditch one of the bookcases, and get a couple new desks. But then I think, "if I get rid of the big table where will I paint on that Elephant size sheet I bought? Or spread out lots of big wet paintings? Won't I miss it???" I'm always spreading out stuff all over my huge table.... Then I get stuck and don't do anything. Same when I think about ditching one or more of the bookcases. Maybe I need to do that thing where I use graph paper to make a replica of the room and the furniture and the proposed new furniture so I can try different arrangements. (Part of the problem is there's not a lot of wall space due to doorways and windows).

Wow, I didn't mean to go on such a long rant. I guess I just wanted to say thank you for the inspiration, and also to offer empathy for how much difficult work this is. I understand why this is taking you so long and requires so much energy. Making the decisions requires FAR more energy than assembling and moving the furniture!

Finally, I love the color of pink you chose for the wall, it's exactly what I envisioned you might do. A perfect background color for your paintings. So did you decide yet about a feature wall, rainbow or otherwise?

[katerinadaniel]

I love IKEA storage solutions! I have 2 large Alex cabinets on wheels, 2 Raskog carts, many IKEA tables and shelves and the pegboards. I am an organization junkie. I also love the white finish on everything for a bright and clean look. I added the wooden chopping board to one of my Raskog carts so I can also use it as a table top surface. Somehow with all of this excellent storage, my art studio space still looks like chaos. :-)

[TrueLoveX]

I so appreciate your desire to repurpose. As a mom, it is hard to not think of waste and our landfills growing exponentially as the days pass. I guess we just do the best where we can, which can be more complicated with budgets, practicality and having munchkins (children). 😊 I love seeing how other artists store their supplies, especially mixed-media artists, as we collect SO much. I love you’re ez breezy style and am going to have to check out your art! Thanks Irit for your time. Blessings from the States.

[Stephh]

I recently set up my fourth craft room and I have had almost exclusively IKEA furniture in the last two, one of which was set up for 12 years! I keep things for a long time (keep cars for 10+ years), so I don’t feel bad about having bought all new furniture for my latest set-up (especially since I passed along my previous furniture to a family who was thrilled to receive the items) - I switched from all black to all white furnishings and I couldn’t be happier! And I’m a huge fan of carts - I have 6! Thx for sharing your finds! Steph

[kathygallagher]

So sweet watching your cat wash herself in the chair behind you…. I’ve just discovered your channel and have liked and subscribed. Great informative content. Thank you.

[mycreativeescape]

Love this! I love love love my Raskog carts! I love that they can be rolled around as needed and mine are loaded up with the cups, too. hehe! I have the Alex on my wishlist! I need two of them!

[sheilasinghal]

Great video. Thanks! I always like tips on how to organize my mess of supplies.

[sheilasinghal]

A little aside, if anyone gets the ad for watercolor ideas or color mixing, don't click on it. The download will never be delivered, and all it does is takes you to a site that wants your name and email address, then tries to sell you all kinds of art courses. I've tried with two different downloads, just to see, and it was the same thing both times — so it appears that the offer of a free download is just a way to get you to their sales site.

[tonilyng]

Brilliant organizing suggestions; thank you. I was also considering a baby changing table as an art table. Many have drawers and shelves to store essentials. Some are high enough to use while standing. In any case, that is my « deux centimes ».

[Antony_Oscar]

Wow thanks for showing those cups you have hanging from the cart, I didn't know those existed! They seem SUPER useful for me, I need my most used supplies to be visible (and not in the bottom of some drawer etc) because otherwise I forget they exist.

[rinavogels]

Mala portable drawing bag for in the car.☺️ I use it a lot. Its for kids but I think its great for everyone!! Thanks again Irit 💞

[susanleenp]

Thank you for your experience with Ikea products. Agree with your assessments.

[AnimeKnight]

You can spray paint the black metal organizer (non teal version). I sprayed painted mine metallic hot pink. ❤😂🎉😊

[sarahartschannel]

This video has given me so many ideas for how I could spruce up my art corner with more furniture that would be much better than what I have now !

[dianekhamilton]

I have something similar to your Kvissle on the wall behind my door. I use it for things I tear out of magazines for collage. So my collage materials are organized by, for example, faces, flowers, maps, etc. It works very well for me.

[KonjikiKonjiki]

My bf works delivery in a big van, he's scored some really fun stuff from the side of the road, a lot of store fixtures. I am so happy to be part of helping existing things find a new life. One is a tiered round display for makeup or something, , it's like 120 cm tall and like you find with the Raskog cart lower tiers, I had a hard time using the covered shelves. But, those pen cups you have on your cart, here they are selling for 99 cents and they fit perfectly not only on the top of my freestanding Skadis pegboard, they are exactly wonderful on my round tiered storage. :). Loved your tour, tfs!

[Kd_art]

Hi Irit, you are making me feel very unorganized!!! Great job and I love the wall color . My cart didn’t match my room so I just spray painted it white. It wasn’t messy or time consuming. You must spray outside of course. Just an idea. Best of luck. Kr