I am still unsure of my take on IKEA’s India product line. I have seen much better products in their line outside of India so right now from what I saw in the store, I’m a bit undecided. The more warm, natural products from their home line outside of India is absolutely missing in the Mumbai Store. It is early days yet plus we are just coming out of the Pandemic year so I’d say same time next year we’d probably have a better collection to shop from. That’s when we’d be heading there for our next big shop trip.

We did get a few of their large furniture more for the kids and we’ll see how those handle the enthusiasm the kids are showing this week. There is one product though that I think is beyond brilliant from what we got a couple of weeks ago, it’s the Mala art range.

What we like about them –
🎨 Bold, beautiful colours, there are 3 reasons my kids like to create art – The mess, the ‘do anything you want with it’ technique (hands, brush, buds, flowers, everything goes in) and the let’s stick this up on the wall outcome. Mala is great because the primary shades in their range of paints, bold markers, big paint palette box and thick wooden brushes ensure a good looking outcome.

🎨 Easy to pour and store – Art is an any time activity, one the should allow children easy access. The Mala art range is very accessible so the kids can reach for it themselves, it pours well / easy, although sometimes they tend to get a lot of paint out. It’s still great for little hands to use by themselves and provides the autonomy for making art. It also doesn’t always need water if you use the pour paints.

🎨 Fantastic range of art material. They have everything from paints, markers to crayons, My favorite though is the paper roll that lets children just keep making / painting. Their pour paints, palette paint boxes, markers, crayons are all great for little hands to explore art. The paper rolls are good for hours of uninterrupted art. Once done just tear and put it up on display!

🎨 Their brushes, easels and boards are reasonable and sturdy for children to use as well. I don’t have space for these so we just go with our table. The paper roll has been great for this.

🎨 My favorite part is that it washes clean off too without much effort. The brushes can be soaked in water for a bit if the paint is stubborn. None of it is taste safe so not recommended for mouthing babies.

If you have an art loving child that loves to explore colours, the Mala range is one of the best art materials we have used so far. The kids have been painting everything from leaves and sticks to making big poster pictures of the sun. Its not too pricey either considering the quantities are much more as compared to other brands with similar paints. Sourcing is easy if you are in any of the Ikea delivery cities i.e Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad etc. Other cities can find businesses that ship to your city.