Ikea

My pick of favourites coming to IKEA this February

We may still be in the cold depths of winter here, but already IKEA is looking forward to the brighter days of summer, as it unveils a collection of exciting new products. The launch is definitely designed to bring some brightness into our homes, with a boost of colour, striking graphics and bold pattern guaranteed to help you both personalise and make a statement in your home interior.

As well as its latest collaboration project with British designer Tom Dixon in the form of the DELAKTIG bed frame and range of headboards, there’s a host of other new products out there that are well worth checking out. I thought I’d share my favourites with you which are coming to IKEA this February, so let’s take a look!

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Ikea Democratic Design Days 2018

I have recently returned from an exciting trip to Älmhult, Sweden, where I attended IKEA’s Democratic Design Days event. It’s an opportunity for the world’s press and interior influencers to get behind the scenes of IKEA’s product design and development, as well as find out about upcoming ideas and collaborations in the making.

To say I was excited about this was an understatement!!

I travelled to IKEA with other journalists and influencers from the UK and Ireland, staying in the IKEA Hotel in Älmhult for the duration of the event. As you would imagine, the IKEA Hotel is a super relaxed and well designed place, with really simple yet comfortable rooms and lots of cosy areas where guests can sit and relax, enjoy a coffee or catch up on work – and yes, it is kind of like staying in an in-store room set, except you can use all the stuff!!

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IKEA celebrates ten years in Northern Ireland!

This year marks the 10th anniversary of IKEA opening its very first store on the island of Ireland, based here in Belfast. To help celebrate the very successful past ten years of IKEA in Northern Ireland, I was delighted to be invited along to a media breakfast morning, which included a short tour of the store and a celebratory birthday breakfast (Scandi-style, with plenty of coffee and pastries, of course!)

During our store walkabout, we were introduced to some of the interior design team and product specialists who make up the 330-strong team of co-workers based at IKEA Belfast. They revealed the top selling products that have demonstrated how IKEA has had its part in ensuring we live a better everyday life here in NI, as well as a really fascinating insight into how life has evolved dramatically over the past ten years, with developments in technology, the rise in open plan living and a general move towards city-dwelling very much dictating how we live our daily lives at home.

Read on to find out what I learned about the shopping habits of IKEA Belfast customers!

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Say hey to HAY at IKEA with the YPPERLIG collection

Eagerly awaited by Scandi interiors enthusiasts across the country (yours truly included), this month IKEA has launched an exciting collaboration with Danish design duo, HAY.

The YPPERLIG collection boasts a variety of products hallmarked with the HAY signature design combining functionality with aesthetics. In store, you’ll find everything from sofas to coffee tables, even the iconic IKEA blue bag has been given a HAY makeover!

The YPPERLIG collection also includes cushion covers, coffee tables, chairs, hand painted vases, lamps and simple, multifunctional sofas, but which to put in your trolley next time you visit? Here are my favourite pieces which are definitely on my shopping list…

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A Swedish Food Styling Lesson with IKEA

In this age of social media and social sharing, it seems we can’t say we’ve truly enjoyed a meal without having shared it with our Instagram community or Facebook friends, taking perfect shots of our plates in the hope of capturing the moment and enticing the senses of others. As a blogger, I am a totally guilty party on this front, so I was really delighted to be invited along to my local IKEA store here in Belfast to learn some top tips on styling and photographing food and kitchen wares for that perfect Instagrammable shot. As a homes and interiors blogger, I haven’t worked with foodie styling that much in the past, however with IKEA’s gorgeous new Summer 2017 dining and kitchenware ranges in-store, I was excited to get to use their products whilst creating some Insta-worthy shots.

Local stylist and all-round Instagram guru, Eve Brannon, was on hand during the evening helping us create a Swedish ‘smorgasbord’, which is essentially sharing plates of tapas-style food which is enjoyed by family and friends together around the table, everyone helping themselves in true feel-good ‘hygge’ fashion. Eve showed us how to style the various ingredients on our own individual smorgasbords, all the while imparting some invaluable tips on how to make our culinary creations totally and deliciously ‘Instagram-able’, using food and serving ware which can all be bought in-store.

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Win at Sleeping with Ikea: Reaping the Benefits of Better Sleep

If you’ve been following the blog lately, you’ll know that over the past few weeks we’ve had the amazing opportunity of working with IKEA on their ‘Win at Sleeping’ campaign, which runs until the end of March.

The campaign is aimed at improving the nation’s quality of sleep by encouraging us all to make a few small changes to how we prepare for sleep. This can be anything from creating a calm, cosy and restful bedtime environment to adjusting our personal sleeping habits to ensure a full and undisturbed night’s slumber.

I met with IKEA back in February to discuss my own family’s sleep issues and they were able to recommend some strategies and products for us to try, with a view to helping us improve on several sleep-related areas. If you’d like to see the products we chose to try out, you can read up about it here!

Now that we’ve been using the products for a month, I wanted to update you on how we’ve got on, as well as take a quick look at some other IKEA products you might want to consider trying out yourself.

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Win at Sleeping with Ikea: Making Changes to Improve our Sleep

If you’ve been following the blog lately, both here and over on my Instagram feed, you’ll know I’ve been working with IKEA on their Win at Sleeping campaign. With the aim of helping us solve our sleep issues and, in turn, our health and wellbeing, the campaign is centred around what small changes we can make at home to improve our nighttime routine, sleeping habits and general sleep preparation.

As I talked about in my first post in this series last week, we have worked with IKEA to identify our own family’s sleep problems and in order to try to solve them, we will be trying out some IKEA products over the coming weeks. We were very excited to take delivery of the products at the beginning of this week and after lots of flat pack fun in the ensuing days, I can finally show you what we chose to try out in the hope of better sleep preparation and comfort ahead…
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Win at Sleeping with Ikea: Solving our Family’s Sleep Problems

I don’t know about you, but these cold, dark mornings are making me feel really lazy and lethargic when it comes to getting out of my warm bed at the start of the day. I’ve also never been that good at getting myself organised and off to bed early during the week; the draw of on-demand telly whilst cocooned in a thick blanket on the couch, being my particular downfall. Who’s with me on this? Or perhaps you find yourself scrolling through Pinterest, searching for the answer to your dream kitchen cupboard colour – been there? Thought so. We are all depriving ourselves of wholesome sleep for every minute we waste on our tablets or phones when it’s past our bedtime, and in the morning when the alarm goes off, we pay for it.

I was therefore really excited to be contacted by the lovely folk at IKEA, asking me to work with them on their Win at Sleeping campaign, which you may have noticed recently on TV and in the press. It’s no secret that as a nation, we aren’t great sleepers, with many of us struggling to get a decent eight hours’ kip on a regular basis. The fast pace of modern life, along with the addictive pull of ever present smartphones and tablets with their stimulating blue screens, is certainly a major contributing factor, however many of our sleep problems have startlingly simple roots, such as inadequate sleep preparation, bad sleeping habits or a poorly organised bedroom environment.

IKEA are determined to promote better sleep for all of us and for good reason, too. There are countless benefits to be had from sleeping well, including better mood, raised energy levels, improved productivity at work and school, as well as positive health effects, such as improved memory, a sharper mind and lower stress levels. And the best thing about it? It only takes making a few small changes to guarantee ‘The Wonderful Everynight’ that we all need…

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