Which art easel are you using?

[gbailey]

Hi everyone. I'm looking to get DD an art easel. I have my eye on two. Step 2 and Crayola. They both look cute and have good things about it that the other doesn't (the step 2 includes a clip to put up coloring sheets, etc) and the Crayola one comes with a dry eraser which I can always purchase at a 99 cent store. What art easel are you using and are you happy with it?

[just_lily]

We have a couple of Ikea ones. It was only like $20 which entirely works for my purposes. And it is wood, which I prefer over plastic when available. It has a chalk board, a white board, and fits rolls of paper that cost $5. Perfect!

[kittykat2481]

Originally Posted by just_lily

We have a couple of Ikea ones. It was only like $20 which entirely works for my purposes. And it is wood, which I prefer over plastic when available. It has a chalk board, a white board, and fits rolls of paper that cost $5. Perfect!

That's what we have too.

[gbailey]

Thanks. I love the price!

[caenach]

We have the Melissa & Doug easel. It's wooden, very sturdy, and has a rod in the center of the easel that you can put a paper roll on...so most of the time the whiteboard side is actually a "paper" side and we use crayons and paint on it. DD also loves the chalkboard side. Every time we have guests, it's about 20 minutes into the visit before an adult is drawing on the easel with DD...so I think it was a good purchase for us. I also like that you can resituate the trays to the top if, like DD, your LO likes to try to sit/stand/climb on them.

We buy the $5 paper roll from Ikea and use it. If I had it to do over, I'd just buy the Ikea easel, probably!

[tbone_kneegrabber]

another Ikea one here. Although I bought it at a yard sale for $2, score! I have seen several at yard sales/thrift stores/ craigslist as well.

[ellairiesmom]

We have the Alex Toys one which is very similar to the M&D one. It is nice & I like the storage trays but I hate trying to have a space for it in the house. If I could do it all over again, I would have come up with stuff to mount on a wall somewhere. I even contemplate taking it apart & mounting the boards to the wall.

Magnets won't stick to our kitchen appliances so a magnet board was impt to me. DD1 loved the leap frog letter & animal learning magnets at my mom's house so we got them & use them on the magnet side of the easel which means the paper covers the chalkboard part most of the time.

I will say that DD1 loves, LOVES to paint at the easel.

[PluggingAway]

We have the M&D easel. No complaints here. The white board is not magnetic which we knew when we bought it. The cheaper alternative (IKEA) seems like the way to go.

[VeganC]

We've got the IKEA one, too. Has been in almost daily use for a little over 6 months, and it's still in good shape.