The GREAT BEAD ORGANIZATION PROJECT

This spring I decided I wanted to redo my garage studio.  

I wanted to move some of my storage pieces around to better utilize my space.

I did a lot of thinking and planning.

Then I told my husband.

He suggested going and getting new shelves to better utilize the space.

We measured and researched options.

Then we went and bought some heavy wire shelves.  

I will show you where we put those later but for now I want to show you my bead shelf.

This is the area before.

I had a lot of this and that piled and stacked.

When we got the new shelves, an old shelf I already had fit perfectly in this spot.

So I cleaned out the old space and moved this shelf over.

I also moved an upper cabinet over.

This is still during the moving process.

This is after.

Tah-Dah!

I love that everything is here in one place for making jewelry.

On the top are all my jewelry books and magazines.

I sorted them all and only kept the ones I use.

The three bins on the top of the wire shelf are my husband's idea.

Those are my holding bins. 

 When I buy new supplies or bring something out and don't have time to put it away, I put it in one of the bins.  

When the bins are full, it is time to sort.

Time to sort....

My drying racks are ready to go and I finally sorted out the trays that fit on the taller skinnier one.

I keep projects I am working on on these trays as well.

In the upper cabinets, under the books, I have bins holding wires, elastic, jute, seed bead tubes, etc.

The bins are easy to stack and remove.

The holding bins are full...better get on that.

Under them are larger bins of bangles, bracelets and headbands sorted by materials.

Then there are the beads.

It took me a week to organize the beads.

My old method involved putting them into these little compartment boxes by when I bought them. 

That is a horrible method for trying to find anything.

So I sorted out every single box and reorganized by color and type.

Types include things like wooden, metals, pearls, whimsical, vintage, and handmade components.

I also have many boxes of hardware goodies like nuts, washers and such.

My label maker got quite a workout.

I love my label maker.

There are some empty boxes for future finds. 

 I have a bunch of stuff in the studio that will go in these too.

I also really loaded each box by combining lots of bead types into each compartment.

I realize that would make some people crazy but it utilizes the boxes so much better for me.

On the side of the shelf are all my chains and necklaces.

These are sorted as well by finish and length.

It makes finding a chain so much easier than my old system which also went by when things were purchased.

I buy chains at yard sales, thrift stores and the mall when they are deeply discounted.

Many of them I will distress and completely change the finish.

Necklaces with beads and dangles get disassembled so I can use them in a different way.

So, this is the GREAT BEAD ORGANIZATION PROJECT.

The capitalization of the project helps to show the magnitude of it.

Thanks for stopping by...

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