Storage & Organization

Obviously, I love me some beads. All kinds too. Stone, glass, big, small....everything. (Except plastic, but that's a different post) Being an unorganized person, it's a challenge for me to keep the beads corralled. Most times it does not work. The living room is piled high with beads, tools, books, magazines, all the jewelry making stuff. And that's not cool. Add in the plethora of cats, and you have daily disasters.

I have lust in my heart for the nice organized beadroom like I've seen. I have lust for the lovely plastic containers organizing beads by color and size. Too bad my attention span overtakes the lust. I can't imagine sitting down and redoing the whole place by size & color. I'm getting there though. It's a bigger process that you think. Again the whole attention span thing.

Right now I have the plastic file cabinets from rubbermaid. Four of them. Some drawers are actually labeled. That was short lived, but at least I did manage to get some semblance of order to some of the stash. Each drawer has a couple snapped lid organizers from the craft store. (I liked those while they were $1, but now they've gone up in price, and I'm not such a fan)

Clear plastic shoeboxes from the dollar store are also my 'organizing system'. Right now there are six large ones on the floor by the coffee table. "Metal", "Glass", "Findings", "Cabs", "Stone", and "The Big Mix" . For now it pretty much works. The Big Mix box is where all the odds and ends go to live.

Seed beads are a whole different ballgame. They have a whole drawer. Not organized, just tossed in a drawer. They also have a whole tackle box. In the partitioned plastic trays with lids, I do have a couple that are organized 'properly', with all the blues in one, the warm colors in another, purples in one and so on. But the little packets and containers are everywhere else. Which is vexing because I don't know what colors I have, don't have or what. Which is good for the LBS, because I just go and buy more.

Another thing I found that I really like are these scrapbooking organizers from Michael's. They're about 18 x 18, and I assume that scrapbook peeps store their paper in them. They're awesome for big projects. You can keep all the beads, needles, fireline spools, scissors whatever in them. When you're done for the now, close the lid and carry on. They're excellent.

Another cool find at Michael's are these photo storage cases. They're smaller, about 6x6 maybe, and they're great for on the go beading or chain mailling. Cut a piece of bead mat to fit in the bottom, glue it in if you wish (i don't) and there you go. I got all OCD and starting matching the color of the box to the color of the project. Green, purple, hot pink. Clear is the wildcard.

So now I've got all these boxes stacked all around the living room too. And THAT is definately a slippery slope. I need something large to store them in.

On one of our weekend rambles last winter, I saw an old beat up armoire at a junk store. It was in rough shape, but had a certain charm. I showed it to Joe, and explained about putting shelves in for bead boxes. He shook his head and walked away. I did not purchase the beat up armoire. And I regret it. I'm going back to the junk store, and if it's to be mine, it will still be there. I have a plan for it. I need one unencumbered weekend of no commentary, no company, no interruptions, just me and my beads to get a little organization going on.

No organization truly impedes the creative process. I truly believe that once I cut out all the BS clutter, can pick up a box of beads without cat hair (and other unmentionable icks) that I'll be able to ramp up my creativity.

Until I have to tackle the bookshelves!