The great bead reorganization project! Finding my inner zen- inside my toolbox...

So this is the contents of my tool box as I was sorting.... What a mess!

Doesn't that photo totally stress you out????

It was totally making me crazy when I knew I had something but it took me forever to find it.

 

 I made a bunch of piles to go through everything. I'm sort of anal that way because I needed to touch and feel and look through everything. It's the sorter in my hoarder personality...

 

I have a bunch of clear plastic boxes that were leftover from wood mounted stamp sets. (A project of mine a few years ago was to un-mount them from the wood blocks, and set them on a different medium that lets you use them on acrylic blocks instead. The storage space that gave me was incredible. I went from having a cabinet of stamp containers to my entire collection fitting inside (2) 6-inch binders. Totally worth the time and soooooo glad I did it)

 

I typically use these clear boxes to sort my beads by color. It's sort of like bead soup in a box because I hate keeping my beads in strands- unless they are really long. But a lot of these bead boxes are remnants from projects or bead mixes, so it works for me.

(I know it kinda kills my bead buddies, but that's just what works for them and their storage methods)

 

I also like to organize by color. So there is a ton of browns, greens and oranges.

I guess that's my flavor. lol

 

So here is everything allllll laid out. Looks so good, right????





Here is a shot of one of the clear boxes. I made a few piles of stuff to make projects in the future. Sort of like the muffin tin concept. I'll keep you posted.

These boxes hold all of my components. So, things like headpins, eye pins, crimp beads, crimp covers, clasps, jump rings, etc.

 This was a pile of onesie-twosie fancy gemstones that I put in a pile to store in my drawer of just simply gorgeous gemstone strands. And yes, they went into a plastic box and out of the bags. YUCK!

Here's some more fancy gemstone strands that were just floating around in with my stuff. They went into the gemstone drawer, which yes, is also organized by color....

 Lastly, here is a big pile of completed projects that were being drug around. I need a better system of organizing all my finished work and maybe an Etsy site to liquidate them.... but I get so attached to this stuff! It's hard to say goodbye sometimes.

I'm trying to- really!

 

 Here's a look at what the trays look like all nice and organized.

 This is my component drawer. Still sort of a mess, but I am not putting this stuff in boxes. It's easier to sift through the stuff as it is.
 

 Here's my drawer of seed beads. These mixes stay in the bags, as they were from Andrew's Design Challenges and I like to keep them like this for posterity. Also, who color codes their seed beads??? That's wayyyyy too much {ahem) fun for me.

 This drawer is my favorite one of all. My husband has specific instructions to call Alison and Andrew in the event that I get hit by the proverbial bus. Lots of $ in this drawer and it is one of my favorite things to look at when I am having a bad day. My pretties!!!!

 This is another one of my favorite drawers. It has a whole bunch of vintage beads and stuff that I have collected and cannot wait to repurpose. Some day!!!!

 

So, thanks for taking a tour of my stuff with me.

I'd bore you with a trip through my bead bag, but, that's another time!

Creating a maker's space

HA!

That title got your attention, didn't it?

So, I have been in the process of getting my maker's space set up, and getting organized in general now that the big move is over.

The hardest part abut the move for me was that all my crafty stuff didn't get to move into the space I had intended it to. We have a detatched garage at the new place that has 'an apartment' above it, but in actuality, the space isn't really what we imagine it to be. Yet.

So we gutted it and we might end up taking the whole thing down and rebuilding from scratch. Whatever. That's YEARS away (if it even happens) and I need a place to get crafty, like, RIGHT FREAKING NOW.

So- after months of my toolbox being in said garage, wrapped in saran wrap, I unwrapped it and rolled it into the house. Pretty epic right? Not really, because there it sat, in disarray. just waiting for me to get inside and reorganize it.

Before: Sad toolbox in garage- sad closet in the house....

After: Happy Unwrapped toolbox and happy fresh clean closet!!!!

 

My next post will feature the process I went through to organize my beads and make things easier to find! YAY!

 

 



The Stunner

OK- so I have been telling everyone about this necklace that I made.

I feel like it was one of those moments that people say are 'epiphanies.'

But let's be real and say that 'the lightbulb went off in my head' at one point when I was going through my bead bag and I found some really gorgeous onesie/twosie sets of faceted yumminess...