organizing your beads + supplies

February 20, 2009 at 4:26 pm | Posted in beading and jewelrymaking, resources and info | 3 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I am constantly battling to keep my zillions of tiny jewelry-making and beading bits and pieces from taking over my whole craft room. I never had a good system until the crazy snowstorm we got in December kept me homebound for a week, and I finally had a chance to reorganize everything and get it whipped into shape!

I have always used simple plastic boxes with compartments inside to store most of my beads and charms, sorted by color. So when I got the chance to overhaul everything, I pared down what I wasn’t using and passed it along, and then made beaded labels to show what color or type was inside each organizer at a glance…

and then I stacked them all on an open bookshelf so I could see them all at once.

The photo above has notes all over on flickr, if you’re interested in even more of my nerdy craft room organizing details…

So if you’re looking for an easy way to get your stash straight, and want to try making simple embellished labels like these, I wrote up a tutorial over at CraftStylish.

All you need is cardstock, a hot glue gun, double-stick tape, and a handful of beads or rhinestones (that you have tons of so you won’t miss four or five), and you’re good to go! As a craft-room clean-up bonus, I started using a simple little plastic paint palette (89¢ from the art supply store) to round up all my loose bits and pieces in one handy spot — that way I can put them all away at once instead of one by one by one.

I’d love to hear your favorite tips for keeping your beads and jewelry-making stuff organized, if you have any to share…