Size or color?
, California, Tuesday, March 03, 2009, 18:58I just realized my bead collection has grown out of control. 
I went to a friend's house last week to make earrings. She asked me for black glass beads and, well lets just say I covered her table with my little beady bags and while it was fun to hunt and peck, I need a more efficient system. I have mainly kept my beads organized by type, seed beads here, glass beads here. Now I am debating if I should sort them by size, 3mm, 4mm, odd shapes, etc, or should I make one bag for each color? How do you guys sort your beads?
Size or color?
What kinds of containers do you store them in? Do you carry them in a travel pouch of some sort or do you have them stocked on a shelf in your house?
I was thinking to myself about what I will do to store my beads when I get my own apartment. I envision having a section of wall covered in that retail store shelf material that you can attach short hooks to, and store the beads in ziplock bags and hang them on the hooks all across the wall so that I can easily spot what beads I have in one glance. I think the key is visibility. Then it wouldn't really matter what order you store them in, would it?
In each individual container, do you have mixed beads or just one bead type in one colour?
Size or color?
Right now they are all in mini zip bags. I don't like mixed beads so I try not to buy them like that. Most of the glass beads I get are on strings or fish line and I cut them, drop in the price tag and all the beads into the mini zip bags the first time I use them. I did have all the little bags in different tins, because I love fun little tins, but they are becoming a hassle to arrange. I have to reorganize every time I buy new beads.
I can't keep my beads out because I have a tiny apartment, 3 kids and a dog and I bead in my room and at the computer desk so I have to have them transportable. The tins are adding to the weight of the beads as I try to pack them around and I never seem to get them packed up the same way twice. Plus all this packing and unpacking is taking up lots of time.
When I took them to my friends, I put them in quart size one zip bags and managed to fit it all in one bag. So what I was thinking was to either do one bag for each color or one bag per size with each individual mini bag inside the quart bag. What do you think?
Size or color?
I found our old music tape drawers a while ago, and discovered those small zip lock bags filled with beads fit in fairly well. So I found another set of those drawers and used 3 for each of the main sized seed beads, 10 and 11, 8, and 6. I sort the bags into similar colors into each drawer. So I have a drawer for reds, yellows, etc for each size. Another for blacks, whites, browns. And another for blues, greens etc. All my other types and shapes I had to put into smaller drawers I found in a hardware shop, again I have a few drawers for each size sorted into the colors. These drawers are a bit squishy, but they do the trick.
Usually I know what size I want, so then I just need to pick the general color, then find those drawers and decide which type, shape and exact color.
Size or color?
Jen, by tape drawer, do you mean a drawer custom designed for storing casettes? Like in a cabinet?
Jax, I don't think having a little wall with short pegs is going to take up that much space, or how about putting up a velcro board in your bedroom and sticking pieces of velcro to each of your ziplock bags? You wouldn't have to take the whole thing with you, just pick your colours, remove those two/three bags off the wall, and just use them to bead with! The drawers are a good idea too, but I think I'd quickly forget what beads I have. Out of sight, out of mind. Are the drawers portable?
Size or color?
That's the word - cassettes! Yeah I've got 2 of them, they're just small cabinets. One has 6 drawers, the other has3. Each drawer is about 11 x 11 x 70 cm. They could be transported alright. I take a couple of drawers out to the table I work on to make my selection. I always forget what I've got as well, but it's easy to have a quick look through the drawers to see. Like this: ![[image]](images/uploaded/image121.jpg)
and this: ![[image]](images/uploaded/image122.jpg)
for the bought one.
velcro
, Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 18:51 @ JenI love the idea of using velcro on a board. This way you can see everything that you have and be inspired. If you don't have a board, you could nail up a piece of cardboard. This was a very helpful tip. thank-you.
velcro
And holepunch a hole in the sealed area of each little resealable bag of beads so it can hang from a thumbtack sticking in your cardboard on the wall. hehe