Studio Product: IKEA ALEX Drawer unit with 9 drawers

This is what the IKEA ALEX Drawer unit with 9 drawers looks like for those reading the comments on my Review: IKEA Alex Drawer Unit for paper storage.  This item has already found a useful place in artists' studios.

ALEX Drawer unit with 9 drawers, white 
UK - Article Number 501.928.22 £81.99
USA - Article Number 501.928.22 $119.00

Specification

It's made in the same way as the Alex Drawer Unit on castors (which I've reviewed) - except it's not mobile.  The dimensions when assembled are

• Width: 36 cm (14.1 inches)
• Depth: 48 cm (18.9 inches)
• Height: 115 cm (45.2 inches)

Looking at it online, here are the pros and cons from my perspective

Pros

• a very useful item for any studio given the size of the drawers.  
• looks ideal for storing pencils, pastels, paints, other media and smaller sizes of paper
• Also has space for all those odds and sods of equipment we have to keep on hand for matting, framing etc.
• small footprint - ideal for studio areas where there are space constraints
• scope to match the Alex Drawer Unit - same depth and same design.

Cons

• deep - deeper than most bookcases (35-40cm) but not as deep as many standard kitchen items (60cm)
• very vertical - which means it will need fixing to the wall to be safe, especially if young children are around 
• no castors and not mobile - which means you need to find a spot and keep it there.

We recommend you secure this furniture to the wall with the enclosed safety strap to prevent it from tipping over. Different wall materials require different types of fasteners. Use fasteners suitable for the walls in your home (not included).IKEA

Review: IKEA Alex Drawer Unit for paper storage

IKEA - Alex Drawer Unit on castors (white) 
Article Number : 401.962.41

This is a review of the IKEA Alex Drawer Unit on Castors - which is my second IKEA purchase as part of the "let's try and store everything better than hitherto" campaign.

I've been storing paper for artwork and works on paper in portfolios for ages and frankly, the number of portfolios was getting very difficult to manage both comfortably and aesthetically!

I have long wanted a plan chest in theory however:

• they mostly tend to be size A0 or A1 and that's much bigger than I want to house and much bigger than I actually need
• if big they become incredibly heavy to move when full - plus you need to start thinking about floor strength!
• they're not that easy to find
• most would look good in an office but less good in a home
• if you do find them, they're very often fairly expensive

Which is why, when I spotted the IKEA Alex Drawer Unit on castors in IKEA, I was so very pleased that at long last it looked like I might have solved the problem of what to do with all that paper.

The bottom line - I was right.  With one caveat - I actually need two!  Here's the review.

• If you want to check paper sizes - take a look at the chart at the end
• If you've created paper storage or reviewed another purchased product providing storage for art paper please leave a comment and a link to your review

Product: IKEA: Alex Drawer Unit on castors (white)

SUMMARY REVIEW: Ease of Assembly: Not overly complicated however you do need 2-3 hours and to be very focused on what you’re doing while assembling it.  Quality / Robustness: It’s particle board not wood. That said it’s good quality and the unit feels robust when finished Functionality: The drawers take large quantities of paper and all move really easily even when full. The castors work well on carpet and the whole unit can be moved easily. This enables the unit to be placed it in front of items you use only occasionally  Value for Money: Very reasonable compared to alternatives - UK Cost £85 plus delivery charge. (USA $119)

Technical Details: size:  Width: 67 cm / 26 3/8 "  Depth: 48 cm/ 18 7/8 "  Height: 66 cm / 26 "  drawers are designed to take paper up to size A2 with space to spare  material:  Basematerial / Drawer front: Particleboard, Acrylic paint, Melamine foil, ABS plastic  Bottom panel: Particleboard, Melamine foil, ABS plastic  Back panel: Particleboard, Melamine foil, Melamine foil  Drawer back / Drawer side: Particleboard, Foil  Drawer bottom: Fibreboard, Acrylic paint colours: available in white and blackweight: 32.4 kg weight: 32.4kg

Who should buy this? artists who work on paper  artists wanting to increase their flat storage capacity for paper, mountboard and completed artwork  pencil artists needing a neat storage solution for the home

Who should not buy this? people wanting flat storage for whole sheets of watercolour paper and mountboard

Highlights: large capacity  draw width enables storage of smaller paper/works in two stacks side by side  drawer mechanism makes drawers run very smoothy  castors make it easy to move around  visual instructions are very helpful - and you can download the Alex Unit instructions before you buy  easy to make up - one person can do it - but you do need to concentrate during assembly. It took me about 3 hours working slowly and carefully (I only made one mistake and that was easy to undo!)

Think Again? if you want to store full size sheets of watercolour paper or mountboard you’ll need something bigger  if you’re not good at using a screwdriver or DIY find a relative or friend who is - and be nice to them!  The USA version indicates the drawers are designed for letter size papers. They are in fact much bigger than this - see paper sizes chart at end

Manufacturer / Distributor: IKEA - their website http://www.ikea.com/ helps you find a store near you.  Plus you can order online (but will need to pay a delivery charge)

Suppliers: only available new from IKEA

A series paper sizes compared to Letter and Legal Sizes

How to create a Lazy Susan Coloured Pencil Holder

Lesley Crawford's Lazy Susan Coloured Pencil Holder
courtesy of David Crawford, Janie Gildown and Barbara Newton
all photos copyright Lesley Crawford

This post describes yet another way coloured pencil artist Lesley Crawford has found to store her art materials.  Earlier this month this blog has a post about Storage for Unison pastels.  This post is about how to create a "Lazy Susan" pencil holder for coloured pencils.

How many times do we see great ideas for helping us sort out our studio in books?  But do we all put them into practice?

Like many coloured pencil artists, Lesley likes to have all her art materials and storage sorted while working in her studio.  She used to have problems with tins and boxes of coloured pencils all over her desk.  They took up too much space.  Plus she also didn't like the way she had to shuffle through pencils bunched together in jars, especially when the shorties fell to the bottom!

Then she saw the Lazy Susan Pencil Holder - as pictured in the Colored Pencil Solution Book by Janie Gildow and Barbara Benedetti Newton.  She asked her husband David if he could work out how to make the pencil holder from the picture!

This is her explanation of how it came about once David had studied the picture and worked out how to make it.  Thanks to Lesley and David for both the story and the pictures - and thanks to both Janie and Barbara for the inspiration!

Instructions for Making a Lazy Susan Pencil Holder

Here's the instructions for making a pencil holder.  It's very simple to make.

The starting Point - a wooden Lazy Susan

Materials:

• Lazy Susan (a circle of wood on a small circle of wood joined by ballbearings so that it spins round - available from kitchen shops).  The one we bought is 14 inches in diameter - see right.
• Timber 35mm x 14mm - from DIY stores, very cheap.  Usually comes in lengths of around 2 metres.
• Small hinges and screws

Tools:

• Saw
• Drill and bit
• Screwdriver

Instructions for how to make a Lazy Susan Pencil Holder

1. Cut the timber into 165mm lengths.  (Please note that this is what fitted my lazy susan.  If yours is a different size you need to adjust this measurement)

2. Choose a drill bit that is slightly larger than the diameter of your pencils.  Put a piece of tape around the bit 30mm from the tip - this will prevent you drilling through the bottom of the wood, and will make all the holes consistently deep.  Drill one hole and check that a pencil will fit, if it is tight then use a slightly larger bit.  Drill a line of holes along the narrow side of the wood, with a slight  space beween each one - I got 14 holes per strip.

3. Join two pieces together with a hinge as shown

4. Make as many units of two pieces of wood as you need.   

5. Sort your pencils out as you want them to be arranged, and write the names  on the wood with indelible ink - ballpoint pen fades over time.

Paired strip joined by hinge - open to show the names of the pencils

Paired strip folded and sitting on top of the Lazy Susan
- and the  Pencil Holder has started (repeat as required)

This then held all my original set of Derwent pencils.  However as my collection increased, it got a bit crowded, so I cut a piece of plywood into a circle of 18 inches in diameter, and screwed four small blocks on it so that it would sit tightly on top of the original lazy susan.

I now have 11 units of paired strips, holding a total of 308 pencils - all in a footprint of 18 square inches.  I have my complete sets of Derwent Artists, Faber Castell Polychromos and Prismacolor Verithins, plus a few odds and ends from other sets.

In the centre is a tub which holds tools, erasers, blenders etc. 

You can keep the whole thing on the desk, or lift off as a unit off to use separately.  The pencils are always in the same order so you soon get to know where they are, and it is easy to put your hand on exactly the one you need.

If you've got a good solution for storage 

or anything which is a cost-effective solution for anything to do with art 

DO let me know by leaving a comment and a link or contacting me (see right hand column). 

Storage for Unison pastels

Lesley Crawford's Unison Pastels - open boxes

Those who own Unison Pastels know that their size and shape means that they don't always fit easily into conventional pastel boxes with slots - and some pastel storage boxes can be very expensive.

Plus the nice bit about Unisons is that you can buy sets relating to a colour and it's nice to be able to keep them all together.  I've still got mine in their original boxes with the foam inserts!

Lesley Crawford wrote to tell me about she stores her brand new Unison Pastels. 

I was researching storage boxes, and found these when I googled plastic boxes. They were called boxes for peel-off stickers - something to do with card making I think.

I picked up twelve plastic boxes on eBay for £13, including postage and packing  I made a corrugated tray, and each box will take 60 Unison pastels,   They arrange neatly in two rows of 15, 30 to a tray, so 60 in a box

They all fit neatly onto a table when opened, and stack with a very small footprint if I need to put them away, and being so light and small are ideal to transport.

It's as if they were made for Unison pastels. I won't tell you how many boxes are filled yet!!

Above and below are photographs of Lesley's pastel boxes.

Pastel boxes open on Lesley's desk

The boxes seem to be something called Peel Off boxes by Weston Boxes.  They sell for £4.60 for a pack of 5.  There's also a range of transparent boxes in lots of different sizes.

Lesley's taken a look at the link now and agrees they look very like them.  We compared prices.  She got 10 boxes from eBay for £13 and I priced them with Weston Boxes as being

• 2 packs of 5 boxes @ £4.60 per pack = £9.20
• postage = £4.25 (missing from the website bit I asked them!)
• total =  £13.45

An alternative storage solution can be seen in Product Review: Really Useful Boxes (for art media and crafts)

For more information about Unison Pastels (which are the most popular pastel in the poll I run) see Unison Pastels - Resources for Artists

Plastic boxes full of Unison Pastels - and stacked

You can see Lesley's pastel art on her website http://gaia-art.co.uk

If you've got a good solution for storage 

or anything which is a cost-effective solution for anything to do with art 

DO let me know by leaving a comment and a link or contacting me (see right hand column). 

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.