Play Eats: Ikea play food and dishes review

I love Ikea. I have had a long-standing affair since junior high when a friend of mine had the catalogs at her house. As most people know, their stuff is super cheap, usually durable (depending on what it's made out of), and looks good. When Z was a baby, I drooled over the duktig dishware but didn't buy it right away. Fortunately, it was still around some time later and I was able to pick up a set of the cups and glasses (now in colors, ours are clear), and a set of the very cute teacups. My sister-in-law awesomely shared some silverware with us as they had plenty.

So far, the stuff has held up very well. It's suffered many a drop to our hardwood floors without a knick (yet). And at the price point, it wouldn't be the end of the world if we lost a saucer.

I decided not to buy the foods on our last visit to the nearest Ikea. We already have so much I couldn't justify spending anymore at that point. But luckily, Carolyn who reviewed the Pottery Barn Kitchen, has a couple of sets and offered some information:

"Like most things Ikea, the play foods are very affordable. As much as I would love to have all upcycled handmade wool felt food, I could buy all of the Ikea food for about $30 and I can throw it in the washing machine without worrying about it. Because it is fabric, it makes it easier to "eat" sandwiches than the hard wood or plastic play foods. The coolest part about the Ikea food is that some of the pieces such as the banana and lettuce have velcro on them so they can peel apart. The cake also comes apart into slices. The only letdown is the ice cream."

The verdict: Ikea play food is well priced for what you get so go for it if you are near the store. I'm not sure it's going to be a value if you have to pay for shipping. The duktig dishware is an amazing deal and worth the hour and 30 minute drive to go get it. It's cheaper than almost any other play sets out there and lovely.

Special thanks to Carolyn again! For the rest of Play Eats, click here.

Rewind: The Nursery

Now that we're turning our crib into a toddler bed and getting rid of the changing table and its drawers full of cloth diapers, I thought it would be nice to post some pictures of the nursery. I put them on flickr ages ago and Ohdeedoh did a nursery tour but I never actually wrote a post about my design. I start at the crib and then move clockwise around the room. I will miss this layout but am also excited to change things up a bit.

The crib is the discontinued Tassa from Ikea. Somehow it will become a toddler bed using the same mattress. I got the sheet on ebay. I framed a beautiful handmade card that my sister in law gave to us at the baby shower but took it down once Zadie got mobile as Mr. Lemon was afraid she would reach it and impale herself. The rugs are from Ikea and Flor. I hadn't seen anything like this but there was a nice spread in Parents magazine a couple of months ago using this same idea.

We constructed the changing table from Ikea's trofast system. There is more information on Ikea Hacker and this earlier post. I've written about the alphabet before as it's been a real work in progress. We'll be moving the dresser to where the changing table is so I'm not sure how it's going to look. And what a sweetie there! About 4 weeks I think. Who can remember?

This dresser is the Anes from Ikea. I think it's been discontinued as well but I like that it's made of actual wood and not a composite. It's very sturdy and well crafted. The bed will be placed under these frames so I'll have to add some more art to fill up the space. All of the frames except for the one are black so it ties all the images together. This little scene has actually changed a good bit these last 2 years.

Although you can see it much better in the first post, I wanted to mention that the molding we used at the edges of our beadboard ceiling is braided metal cable from Lowe's. Wood molding was not working and I wanted an industrial look to tame down the cottageyness of our 100-year-old house with sloping ceilings (it's called a half story). Basically, if I have an idea of something I want to do but I'm not sure what, I'll just walk up and down the aisles of Lowe's until I find it and then I ask Mr. Lemon if it will work. We often call each other from different parts of the massive store. It's tacked up with things that hold down metal conduit.

I love that there is a lot natural light coming in the room. We just have vinyl blinds instead of curtains to keep it airy. There are little cord cleats on the side of each window frame to keep the cords out of the way and we are diligent about using them.

The rocking chair is Ikea's Lillberg. It looks good and is incredibly comfortable but it doesn't really rock. I wish I would have splurged for a nice glider or just bought an ugly one that I could get rid of without guilt. But all three of us can fit in this chair and that makes it really nice. I might recover the cushions. We'll see.

We took the door off the closet when this was my studio and intend to keep it that way. I like how it opens up the space a bit.

And finally, the closet. This has changed the most. I love the little striped socks and black shoes of that doll sitting on the shelf. Most of the stuff is from Ikea too (really?). We got the metal shelf things in their Summer sale tent and even the metal bins on the left are flower pots from there. They work really well in the space which is deep but not very wide. On the right and out of the shot are clothes hanging up. Stuff we use is on the top and the bottom rod holds stuff she'll grow into. I shop ahead to save money.

The pictures in the flickr set have been heavily tagged and commented on but if you have questions or want to know something (or make an offer on the rocker, ha ha), just let me know and I will answer it. I love this space and we spend a lot of time up there.

Project: On the desk

I thought it would be interesting to show the world my current crafty/computer/sewing space. Check out my flickr page for a million notes.

I keep my Huskystar 224 on the desk at all times. To the right of it is a little plate/candle holder where I keep all my cut threads and dull needles to deal with later and a pile of mail to read. Shoved in next to the desk is the Ikea Lack table that we bought for Zadie to go with her chairs. My chair is something I got from salvage at work. It used to be in the library before the remodel and I love it. To the left is the printer and on top of it is a stack of quilt blocks from the Mod Sampler Quilt-along project. My bookshelf is a little messy so it's time for a purge or a relocation of something.

I love looking at people's spaces so just thought I'd share. My desk is actually pretty neat today. What's a mess is the wire basket rack just off to the right and a bin piled high next to that. Anyone wanna hem a bunch of pants and help me out with it?

For more on Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Ironing Board

photo of the shelves taken when I was pregnant. we were getting everything moved into the office

I've just spent the last hour sewing the sashing from my Mod Sampler Quilt to the first two rows. Wow. I'm beat from the ironing and the pinning! I have a tabletop ironing board on the floor next to my desk. It lives there because I use it all the time and I'm too lazy to put it where it belongs.

There is no other place to lay out my strips so after ironing my pieces, I carry them from the office I share with Mr. Lemon and the play kitchen to the living room and pin them together. Then I carry all that back to the sewing desk to put it all together. Back and forth and up and down and ouch my back hurts.

What do you guys use for an ironing board? I asked for one for Christmas but Mr. Lemon said he wasn't about to get me anything because he knew I would just not find it perfect enough and he'd have to return it. He's right. I'm picky.

We have room to store the ironing board between that shelf and the wall. I want something light that folds up easily. My last ironing board was a beast from Ikea. I hated it and it did not survive the move to this house. I would appreciate any recommendations.

For more about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Press

The play kitchen we made for Zadie was featured on Ohdeedoh today. It's one of my favorite blogs. I usually store up a bunch of posts then read them once or twice a week during lunch. A lot of the inspiration for the kitchen came from their archives so it's nice to be added into the mix.

We made a play kitchen

I had an idea of what I wanted and I sketched it out in the car on the way to Ikea. We picked up a bunch of stuff from the wonderful land of AS-IS and went to town. We spent a total of $68.04 (plus tax) and used up a lot of stuff that we had in the basement.

Mr. Lemon did all the building and I provided emotional support and detailing.

Many more photos in my flickr set. The descriptions and comments have more information as well.

Zadie's nursery on the Ikea Hacker blog

I submitted our changing table hack to the Ikea Hacker blog months and months ago. Since I never saw it posted, I just figured it was a bad idea or something.

Today, it magically appeared.

We are still loving this. It works great, we love all the storage in the bins, and when Little Beastie is out of diapers, we'll be able to take this apart and make further use of it.

If it's not on your Google Reader already, you should make a point to add this cool blog. It's crazy what people can do with the stuff in that AS IS room (our first stop on any Ikea trip).

Zadie's nursery is famous

When I was pregnant, I spent hours (while I was at work) drooling over amazing nurseries on flickr and my favorite blogs. I really liked the nurseries featured on Apartment Therapy's blog for baby/kid stuff, ohdeedoh. When I finished up the space, I sent some photos to them and they liked it.

Carrie, the editor, sent me a list of excellent questions that took me three days to answer. The final result is up now. The link to the flickr set containing all the pics seems to be messed up so if you want to see them all, click here instead.

I really liked how she asked stuff like, "How did you incorporate so many items from Ikea without having the nursery look like an Ikea showroom?" That was really hard to answer. I don't know how good ideas come to me. I just know what I like and I'm always surprised when something turns out well.

Trofast as changing table

When I was buying the furniture for Zadie's nursery, I couldn't let myself buy a regular changing table. It was hard to find anything attractive for less than $100. A lot of the brands weren't even made of real wood. Also, once your kid is potty trained, you have this odd piece of "wood" with no other use.

So when I saw the Trofast system at Ikea, I did some measuring and came up with this idea. We bought the stair-step piece and the single unit. Mr. Lemon cut a piece of plywood 1" larger than the changing table pad. I had some teal fleece in a bin so I cut it to size, wrapped it around the plywood and stapled it to the plywood like I was stretching a canvas. So the staples wouldn't scratch the Trofast pieces, I used double-sided tape to put a layer of felt on top of the staples. Mr. Lemon was concerned about safety so he somehow attached the two Trofast pieces together (leaving enough distance between them so that the plywood would fit nicely).

This has been working great for us. The Trofast system is the same size as a standard changing table and doesn't kill Mr. Lemon's back like the pack n play does. The best part about this is that when the baby's no longer in diapers, we'll have a great storage system for all her stuff. If we're lucky, she won't crack her head too many times while she's climbing all over it.

I have more pictures of this system and the nursery over on my flickr.