Jill MacKay's BLOG

Creative Organizing Part II: SEED BEAD STORAGE

Hi All...just want to show you what I have come up with so far for my storage crisis. Darice so kindly sent me a boat load of supplies as when working for them and their clients they ask that I  stick to using only Darice product. So I asked if I could stock my studio as I work (read design) when stringing by grabbing things and laying them out in front of me, and switching things around until I  have a piece I like. Kind of like painting in a way...

So Darice was most gracious and generous and sent me   not only everything I asked for but three times as much!!! Finding a place or a space for it all has proved challenging...I'm still working on it.

I have solved the seed bead challenge. Lots of little tubes of seed beads. Here's what I did. I measured the bottom of the tubes and then got a drill bit slightly larger than the tube...and a nice board and I started drilling! (Yup dig it! Chicks with power tools rock!)

Drilled the entire board full of holes! Then I sanded it a little to knock the big stuff off.

Then I stuck a tube of seed beads in each and every hole and hung it up!

PRETTY COOL HUH? Well I think it is... I have them grouped by color and the outside row on the left side are all the "E" beads. I can pick up the whole board and move around, even set it down on the table if I want and nothing falls out. The little tubes fit perfectly. This is going to work better than my last idea for creative solution to store all my seed beads...a board and elastic...see below:

Though this method is good because it holds any size or shape of container, but they sometimes slip because of this very reason. I like to be able to see them and my beading studio is rather small so I do not want traditional racks that take up a great deal of space.

I like hanging hanks of seed beads a lot. I have them hanging above the glass bead strands, but when you break and use a strand I always tube the left over beads anyways, right? so then you are back to what to do with all the little tubes!

Do  you think I have a lot of seed beads? I don't think I have enough...when I was in Tucson going into Betcey's at Beyond Beadery let me know just how few I really had, as they had an entire room full!!! It was fabulous! See below! ALL just racks and racks and rows and rows and thousands of tubes of seed beads!

Click here to go to Beyond Beadery!

And this photo only shows half the room! My new friend (and neighbor at Bead & Button) Jill from Tapestry Beads (Click here to go to Tapestry Beads) informed me  that my new booth spot at Bead & Button is actually very close to Betcey and her gang...I may not make a dime this year, I'll be running over there every day happily giving her money as her selection of  beads is unbelievable. Love seeing her at the cash register raking in the moolah! We love Betcey!

Beads, beads and more beads. Never enough beads, never too many beads...it's just that finding  a place / space for them!! Please show me your creative solutions won't you?

Best,

Jill

Creative Organizing

Okay I removed the long rant and rave about the price of silver that I had up here....wasn't good blogging... though my noggin felt better after I aired my feelings on the matter... I can say that much.  Leaving this part of the post below...because I am busy trying to come up with cool ways to store things in my jewelry making studio...and would love to see other people's ideas too!

Calling all organizers, calling all creative organizers....if anyone else has come up with some groovy  new storage ideas for the jewelry studios (or any studio for that matter) please email me your ideas and photos and I will post when I post mine!  I think this is a helpful and fun thread...I would do the whole dirtiest studio contest thing but I would just win so what's the point?  Should we make this a contest? Why not?! Whoever sends the coolest storage ideas gets to pick out something off my web site and I will send it to you free of charge...Okay? So send in your ideas. Click on the Contact button on my web site if you don't have my email...and we'll have a vote.

XXOX

Jill