Tell me, what's your method of madness?










So some ladies keep their beads in tubes some don't, some have studios and some have rooms for beading, yet some only have desks.
I have a chest full of beads, and it gets chaotic.
I sit on the floor when I use it as a table. I don't have a proper beading tray, I use small triangular little ittsy bittsy traylings.
As a matter of fact, chaotic is a gross understatement. I live in a teentsy weentsy apartment with the hubby, his bike in the bedroom (the bike oftentimes takes showers too),Samantha Regina , best boxer daughter in the world, two kitties and enough acrylic paint in the kitchen cabinets to finish small church ceilings with. And then of course, about 50 lbs worth of beads and miscellaneous items related to beading.
All those magical beady items reside in a chest that also doubles as a coffee table. When I don't put things back to where they belong, the controlled chaos becomes unbearable random mayhem.

So the first picture shows what I use the paint for. That's my favorite mural I did, not much before I moved from NY. It's a re- imagining of a painting I own from a certain Karl Baagoe from the 1800s. Dutch seascape painter. I made the mural for a grandpa who wanted a boyish maritime painting for his grandson's bedroom. I haven't been painting much since I took up beading.

Then we have the infamous dark chest of wonders. And part of what resides in it.
In order first.As it should be. But you know, sometimes life creeps up on you, bites you in the derriere ,and there goes organization.

Notice, that I organize my beads by colors not what they are.
For example not by size, shape , material they are made out of (except for pearls, they have their own box),but color. Because when I think of jewelry, upcoming projects, I think in colors and textures, but colors first and foremost.... (I also tend to organize my books in the same fashion , and so Proust gets to sit on the same shelf with fairy tales, if they both have purple bindings. Since I am a highly visual thinker, I will find everything this way just by thinking about the color of the book I need. This encourages some interesting lateral thinking exercises. I don't have anything against the Dewey Decimal system, it's just not for me.)

And then there is the before picture of sad chaos.

So the question is, how do YOU organize your stuff? I do not know anyone in person who beads (except for one very nice lady called Bobbe, but I have never seen her stash), and I am dying to know how everyone else does it? I came to do my own thing based on how I do everything else, and most things I tend to do differently then most people I know.
Please leave me comments and tell me what you do. Think of this as a bead organizational survey.

Comments

  1. I like your method of organization! I especially like your organizing by color. I have a fault in gravitating toward certain colors - your method would help me see where I need to fill in the gaps with colors I don't always move toward. A great idea! My "studio" is just a hutch with pigeonholes, usually messy as can be. I've been organizing by size/type of beads - I'm going to try your color method out!

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  2. Fun post! Your bead spread is making me drool! I do the same thing with sorting mine by color but every hank, tube, bag, strand is in a plastic shoebox size container for each color. Delicas have their own container. These boxes have shelves to sit on but are usually spread out. I am lucky enough to have an entire room for my chaos because I am not neat or organized.

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  3. I'm a color girl too, in terms or organization. And your mural is SOOOOO beautiful! You know,here in Minnesota, poeple pay bucketfulls of money for work like that. You are really quite a fine artist!

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  4. Oh Ladies, Thank You for all the input! Jessie, You are so lucky to have a whole room dedicated for for beads! If I had one, I would let chaos rule. How awesome it would be!!! Callie, I think organizing by size and type can be a good thing too. Maybe You are more about textures then colors, and that is very very interesting in itself. And Marsha, Thank You so much for the compliment. I love painting, but have so little room for it both in my apartment and in my life nowdays. It was kind of stressful to paint for order , I always worried that people would not like my murals. And being in a new town, full of art students, and mostly without connections,I wouldn't even know where to start. So I am just beading for now.

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  5. Greetings Kinga,
    Love this story, your beadworks, paintig and the blog. I too organize by color, no matter the type. Happy Creative Day to You!

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  6. Szió, köszönöm a szavaidat, a gyöngykészleted nem semmi... :))))
    Megyek tovább és lesem az ékszereidet.
    Ha jössz haza, szívesen találkozok ám veled. :)
    Zsuzsi

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  7. I'm completely disorganised, so my beads are all mixed in together. I normally keep them in the little bags that they came in, but they are all thrown into the same box and mixed up together. I also bead whilst hunched over on my spare bed rather than at a desk of with trays - again part of my disorganised personality. I love your jewellery by the way, it's really beautiful. It must take forever to do all that detail!

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  8. Thank You all for the responses ! Eva Maria, I would LOVE to see your stash! Judging by the beautiful things you make, it must be an amazing bead collection. Alexandra, I'm so glad you stopped by. I am disorganized myself, it's only for a little while that things remain so neat. It does take a pretty long time to make my jewelry, but I love it and it takes a lot shorter then Freudian psychoanalysis....
    Vezsuzsi: Sajnos , hacsak hires es gazdag nem leszek hamarosan (a gyongyeimbol), egy jo darabig nem megyek meg haza latogatoba. Pedig jo lenne, mert szivesen beneznek hozzad:)) Koszi szepen a kedves szavakat:))

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  9. En ugy hiszem ,hogy a te organizalasi szisztemad nagyon jo. En azert nem gondoltam meg arra hogy szinek szerint valogassam oket mert nem vagyok jok a szinekben. Azt hiszem ehhez erzek kell ami nekem nincs , vagy tanulni kell a szineket.
    En meret es forma szerint tartom oket kulon , de ez csak ideig oraig mukodik ,pontosabban addig amig ki nem talalok valamit es maris teljes a kaosz a gyongyok kozott ujra:))
    ....I love your posts and your work too :)

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