Organizing Beads

For years I beaded with seed beads. Organizing them wasn't really a problem. They came in those little tubes. You lay them out, pick your poison, and start crafting.

 

Eventually my seed bead assortment grew when I bought them by the hank.. too many for one of those little stoppered tubes, so I used 35mm film canisters, (anyone remember those?) and empty prescription bottles. I stuck a label to the lid and wrote the type of bead housed inside. 

I kept these bottles in a shoe box. So like the tubes, I could just peer at the assortment, chose my liking, and go to work.

But now my beading has grown beyond seed beads. I have bugles, clay, glass, plastic, chunky, tiny, some with just a few the same, and some with many the same. Organizing them was a problem. I found myself bead shopping and constantly thinking, "Do I have some like this already?" or even worse, complete a project and THEN find the perfect bead in my stash that I had all along.
So first I bought a box of small 3" x 5" zip lock bags so I could get rid of the opened bags of all shapes and sizes held closed with straight pins. It also gave me something to put beads in when I took apart a vintage necklace. I decided it made the most sense to organize them by color, so I cut up a cardboard box and taped strips of cardboard into a plastic storage drawer using box tape. I spaced them a couple of inches apart forming dividers in the drawer.

 I think you can see what I did in this picture. I only put the tape across the bottom of the strip of cardboard, so it's only secured across the bottom. It's not attached to the sides of the drawer, so it can flop back and forth. I taped both the front and back so I wouldn't have an issue of the bead bags sliding under the dividers and getting stuck. I started to label the cardboard pieces with the color names, but that might vary from time to time, I decided not to do that. Here's my current assortment of blue/green beads.

 As you can see I have them in all shapes, quantities, and sizes. At present the blue/greens are in the first divided section of the drawer.

 The reds/pinks are in the next section... and so on.

 So now, when I'm making a pair of earrings, or beading a watch band and want to make it blue and silver, I just open the drawer, flip to the blue section and choose from my blue/green assortment, then flip to the silver section and make my choice there. It may not look pretty, but it works like a charm. I'm not buying duplicates, and I'm using my beads more effectively.

 What organization challenges have you solved with your craft supplies?

Travel Document Organizer

Before I traveled overseas the second time for work I decided to make a travel document organizer. Of the tutorials I found online, I liked this one from Thimble the best. Here's my version

The tutorial was easy to follow and the organizer itself is really great. I like the security the zippered pockets provided and it was great to have everything I needed at my fingertips.

 

If you have a need for such an accessory, I'd really recommend it.

Cute Dogs & A Funny Picture

How cute is this picture?

hehehe

Adventures in Sewing Purses

I asked Mr. ShowMe to get me Lisa Lam's book, The Bag Making Bible, for Christmas last year. My plans were to sew my way through it and improve my bag making skills as I learned new things. The first bag in the book is the Peek-A-Boo Pleat tote. Here's my version.

 

And about the time I finished it I found out my employer was sending me back overseas. Having gone once already I knew I wanted a better carry on bag, so I skipped ahead in my book and made the Great Getaway Bag next. 

It was just the perfect size. Big enough for all my carry-on necessities, plus my laptop, so I was able to pack my lap-top bag in my checked bags and not deal with in while I was traveling.

I still haven't made all the bags in the book, but I've found it a valuable resource. I've learned a lot of things that I didn't know before. Whenever I'm trying a new purse design and want to add a feature that I haven't tried before, it's my first stop for instructions.

Jewelry Organizers

Mr. Showme has been busy making some really cool jewelry organizers. He's been experimenting and figuring out how to transfer a printed image directly to wood. This isn't decoupage or decals. The process is really neat the results are quite breath-taking.

These first two are images from vintage sewing patterns. The lady in the green dress and the next one with the pin-up are printed onto reclaimed cabinet doors.

This one is from a vintage pin-up.

Some old advertising.

And a couple that weren't printed images, but were stained glass.

Here's one showing how much jewelry you can get on the pegs that he attached around the frame. I'll have my own jewelry a bit more organized than this, but we wanted to show how much it would hold. They're in our Etsy shop if you want to see more pictures or any new ones as he posts them.

Luggage Tags

I wanted to make some luggage tags to help my dark green suitcase stand out from all the other dark green suitcases. I looked at and even tried a few tutorials online. I ended up taking the things I liked from a few different ones and added a little of my own ideas in the mix to come up with this. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

 They're fabric on both sides with Velcro at the bottom keeping them together and elastic loops at the top to slip knot onto the luggage handle.

It's hard to see in the picture, but I bought a wallet photo insert for $1 that had six photo sleeves at Target. I cut the sleeves off and separated the two pieces of plastic so I got two pieces of clear plastic from each sleeve. For my buck I have enough plastic sheets to make twelve luggage tags. I just stitched around the three sides leaving the top open to slip the piece of paper in with my secret identity printed on it.

I also finally braved the dreaded button hole and ended up wondering why I was so nervous about doing them! They were a breeze!!

A Baby Shower

We threw a baby shower today for a co-worker. It's her second, so she wasn't really expecting it, (the shower, not the baby! hehe). The diaper tricycle that I made was a big hit. It was a lot of fun.. much more fun than the diaper cakes I've made in the past.