12.26.2008

December page completed


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Being snowed in has had its' advantages as I finished up my December page this evening. I have an idea brewing for January but think I need to spend a day re-organizing my bead stash and I've not really put anything away in its' proper spot since this BJP began in September and it's difficult to tell what I have on hand.

How do you organize your beads? I've tried sorting by color, sorting by size, but it still seems like even when the beads are 'sorted' there is still a big jumble in each color drawer and I spend far far too much time finding what I want to use instead of actually beading.

Here's December completed.

14 comments:

abeadlady said...

That's terrific, Diane. I love the movement in it.
I am seriously lagging on my pages. In the last month and a half, I have made 30 bead embroidered pendants for gifts and as samples for a class I'm doing in Jan. Maybe now I can get back to my BJP pages.
Arline

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

I love your choices of color each month. This is ANOTHER beautiful piece. Lucky you, you finished December in December!!

pam T said...

Absolutely stunning, as always, Diane!
I am with you on the whole bead-sorting thing.... I have trays sorted by colors, with the inevitable mounds of stray colors in each one! and always know that something should be with one color tray - but always find it in the wrong place..... (I guess that black bead is sort of yellow????) :)

Cindy said...

This piece is beautiful. The colours speak to me. I love these colours.

As for organizing, I used to struggle with this. My first adventure into Bead Embroidery was a class with Robin in June 2007. I liked the way she had things in small plastic bags, not tubes, & as a travel a lot, I thought that would be handy - more compact.

so I spent hours emptying my bead tubes into small bags (I purchased them at The Container Store). The first thing I noticed with this was that I suddenly didn't have so many containers of beads everywhere!

I then took those bags & another item from The Container Store that I already owned. It is a set of drawers, maybe 8, that are on wheels. Drawers are about 2" deep. I looked at the colours I had & designated a colour for each drawer. As an example, for the yellows, I have some that lead into the red or some that lead into the green but basically yellow. So if I'm looking for a green bead, I will not only check the green drawer but also the yellow drawer.

The beauty of this is that things are colour coded so I get to riffle through the drawers when I need a colour & that is fun.

Everything now is in this set of drawers instead of boxes & boxes on my shelves. They are easy to remove the small bags & throw into my project bags. They also make the beads easy to see, rather than being in the tubes.

For me, this really worked. The drawers even pull completely out so I can take them to my work table & really go through them. Of course, as I work on more projects I realize that I need more beads so I will be migrating into a new container soon :)

Sandy said...

It's beautiful.

Robin said...

I get it! Suck at home by snow and ice... boxed in... circled by snow... beautiful ice prison... Maybe that's too strong, yet it's how your piece makes me feel. You did a beautiful job on it... beautiful beads and exquisitely done as usual. More than anything, it makes me want to return to my old way of beading... solid! Fabulous, Diane! I want to meet with you and see them in person... as soon as this dang ice and snow clears out!

I'll write a post about how I organize my beads soon.

beadbabe49 said...

Beautiful piece, diane!
As for organization, it depends on several factors...how many beads you have, how much space you have to store them in and just how finicky you want to get!
I have a lot, not much space, and love to organize so mine are organized by size, type and color. I organized them by size because when I was doing beadweaving (like peyote and brick stitch), size was important, now that I'm doing mostly bead embroidery, it's not so vital but they're already organized that way so I keep it up as I add new beads. Within the sizes (like all my charlottes are in one cabinet) I organize by color and also by type (like all my matt beads are together and all the satin finishes)...that's all the Czech beads. The Japanese beads I've put into those small plastic boxes that hold the tiny flip top boxes in several sizes and the extras go into plastic bags in drawers.
And then there's the vintage, lol!
So, how crazy do you want to get!

Julie said...

Oh, this is beautiful. I love all the places I can go in one piece. Julie C

Anonymous said...

This is absolutely fabulous! Great colours and beautifully beaded work!
<3 <3

Muriel said...

Waouhh! C'est superbe!!!

heidibeads said...

Beautiful as usual - how big is it? Stuck at home in the snow - what a lovely thought, with tea or hot chocolate and a bunch of beads - yummy! Organize beads? hum? Ordered chaos, here! Good luck.

Marty S said...

I love your page. The colors are beautiful.

Organizing, oh, please! I'm the one who has found that cleaning up my stuff leads to no good end. I can never remember where the "away" place is.

My beads are mostly in little bags, and then in larger ziplock bags by color. Then the larger bags are in two plastic storage boxes. Since there is always a crossover in the colors, I do end up sorting through them each time I start a new project, a process I do enjoy.

Snowrose said...

Wow! The design, colours, and non-beaded items you used in this entire embroidery beaded piece is just stunning! I haven't quite mastered the same bravery in doing large pieces for the BJP. I've got lots of catching up to do. I sincerely need to be much more disciplined when it comes to monthly projects... It's not always easy to determine what I want to do and that stops me dead in my tracks. It's incredible you finished December's piece *in* December! Whew! Amazing! You deserve lots of beady hugs!

Sabine said...

Lovely, Diane! There is a good side to everything - even to being "iced in" for days. You used that time to great advantage.
Sabine