Product Review: Really Useful Boxes (for art media and crafts)

Product: Really Useful Boxes

Manufacturer / Distributor: Really Useful Products - a European Company that design and develop their own range of Really Useful Boxes.

Technical Details: Range of craft boxes (smaller sizes 0.55 litre Really Useful Box - suitable for pencils 0.35 litre Really Useful Box - suitable for pastels in ground rice/cornmeal Box colour choices are either transparent, solid, white strong , or purple strong. All boxes include a lid unless otherwise stated.

Summary: Robust transparent boxes which provide storage when transporting pastels and pencils.

Who should buy this?: art tutors transporting materials for workshops plein air artists artists who sketch craft artists artists requiring storage for stock of art media

Who should not buy this? artists with adequate storage artists who don't need to transport media easily artists with preferred alternatives for carrying art media

Highlights: robust and sensible sized transparent boxes suitable for storage of dry media (or other art media or craft materials) each box has a lid and and handles (and spare or replacement lids are available) can be stacked or racked

Think Again? Only to be purchased once you've sorted and rationalised what you already hold in stock!

Suppliers: Available from a complete of boxes available online from Really Useful Products in different countries UK | USA | Germany | Ireland | France | Belgium | Netherlands | Sweden | Switzerland List of retailers for the UK including E-commerce (buying online) Direct from a multiple retailer Direct from a multiple wholesaler Special household storage outlets Other stockists Amazon.co.uk (buying online) eBay (buying online) Mail order Factory shop In USA products tailored for the US market are available through the online shop from June 2009 (despatched from warehouse in Illinois)

At Felicity House's workshop yesterday, she showed and shared with us how she kept her pastels. One idea which I particularly liked were her use of different sizes of what I subsequently discovered are "really useful boxes".

They come in ideal size for holding

• sets of pencils (back of the photo) or
  
• pastel pieces in ground rice (front of the photo). It's a simple idea but very useful! No need to take the complete pastel set when using pastels plein air or away from home - take these small sets of pieces of pastels.
  

See the photograph to see what I mean.

Really useful boxes holding pastels and pencils
Felicity House's workshop kit
photo copyright Katherine Tyrrell

What I liked about the boxes were that they were transparent, had handles and could be stacked. I'm convinced and will be getting hold of some.

Their website provides a summary of the complete range of sizes and dimensions

This page provides details of Really useful boxes in different countries - UK | USA | Germany | Ireland | France | Belgium | Netherlands | Sweden | Switzerland

These are comments from Felicity House

The Really Useful Boxes are excellent ... BUT beware .... they are not 'water tight' like the tupperware style plastic box . ie when using for storing pastel pieces in ground rice , it can leak a bit if they are tipped up sideways . They are great for the studio and teaching. As I stack all my teaching boxes inside a large strong opaque R U Box and
transport this pretty well level , I dont have a problem . but they'd certainly leak ground rice if placed haphazardly in a rucksack that went at all angles during an outing , wouldnt be a problem with pencils , charcoal etc or with pastels in your larger grain cornmeal or whole rice.

My small , shallow, circular tubs have SCREW-ON lids , so they seal tight and don't leak at all . they are great to chuck in a rucksack for travelling. They are empty Garnier body creme containers...used to get from Boots , but I havn't seen them for a year or so now, I would get back up replacements if I had found them again. Others I've seen are not that shallow.