Beadslide! Torbeado! Beadvalanche!

Natural disaster has struck my beading world!  The byproduct of working full-time, dancing several days a week, and having multiple creative outlets means that sometimes I skip that necessary step of creating...putting things away.  I have so many ideas and so many projects I want to work on...but it's so hard to get motivated when you know that even one bead you need for a project is buried in a heap of things waiting to be put away (not to mention the needles and thread!).  It's gotten more out of hand than normal lately...to the point that I really HAVE to get all this dealt with, just so that I can walk into my craft room and use, well, anything!

So today, I thought I would share with you how I take this crazy, overflowing, beautiful mess, sort through everything and get it all put away.  It all starts here:

This is a 24x48x8" under bed box, overflowing and stacked about 12" higher than the sides of the bin.  As I work on projects, pause, or finish, the overflow beads end up in here, along with materials, beading tools and supplies, and sometimes partially finished projects do too!  Normally, I tend to put everything away about every 4-6 weeks (or when we have a guest) - that seems to be a manageable time frame.  In that time frame, my overflow box will end up being a bin closer to shoe box size.  This mess though...has been developing since before Christmas, which means it's going to take more of a strategic attack to sort and put away.

I store all of my beads very compactly in regular storage boxes on a big shelf (pet peeve - I detest storing air).  For the most part, I have each box labeled, and shelved with other boxes in the same broad category.  This means that the easiest way for me to sort out a disaster and put things away is to start sorting into broad categories:
Seed beads, glass, ceramic, metal, organic, stone, plastic, stringing material, tools, ufo/wip, etc.

Also, apparently I left my floor cushion unused for too long, and my supervisor took up residence...

I start out designating open bins for each broad category.  I know some categories will need bigger containers than others, so I try to plan accordingly because it's disruptive to have to recontain or add a new container for a category in the middle of sorting.

Eventually I get down to just the loose beads and bits and bobs in the bottom of the container.  I scoop it all into a smaller container to sort later so that I can get into the main part of the project - putting things away!  This part is both the most work, and the most fun!  I choose a category to start with, and pull the pertinent boxes off the shelf.  Depending on the category, each box will either be material or color specific, so I will sort each bin into the correct box as I pick up each item/bag/strand/etc.

Stray seed beads, seed beads sorted into boxes.

Glass of all types ready to be put away, organic materials and stones/fossils, all ready to be sorted into the boxes.

Sometimes this step in the process doesn't quite go as planned...usually due to shopping.  Even when I'm not beading regularly, new beads still end up making it into my collection on a regular basis.  This can become problematic when I end up with more beads than I previously had stashed in the appropriate box.  Now I have to decide - do I stash the overflow in a different box?  Or, do I rehome the whole category into a new box?!?  Oh, the dilemma!

Ahhhhhh, when it's done, it's so beautiful -carpet to walk on and nice orderly boxes full on the shelves.  There is so much potential tucked away in these boxes!  And now that the beads are out of the way, I have a lovely empty bin that I can store my fabric in...so that I can access it easier for sewing new doll clothes...which reminds me...I need to clean off the sewing table...

Surely, I'm not the only creative person that has these issues!  What do you do when your materials take over?  Do you have any tips or tricks to share?  Any brilliant idea for storing spools of wire and leather, because I'm still stumped on that one...  We would love to hear from you!

A Quick Trip To Bead Fest Spring

Back on April 9th, I took a trip out to PA for the final Bead Fest Spring (don't worry, the August show isn't going anywhere).

Snow...in April

When we crossed the NJ border into PA, it started snowing.  As we got closer and closer to the show the weather got worse.  Mother Nature was not kind.

Scenes from the show

In my short 2.5 hours at the show, I was fortunate enough to see some friends including Jenny Davies-Reazor, Staci Louise Smith, Leslie Rogalski/Sleepless Beader, Greg Ogden/Green Girl Studios, Claudia Warszawski, Linda Escobar Panagopolus and many more!

MyElements by Yvonne

It was also great to see Yvonne Irvin-Faus/MyElements back vending the show!  She brought a TON of her YUMMEEz with her!  I couldn't resist them!

The Haul

As you can see, I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't resist them!  I also came home with goodies from Jenny and some Green Girl pieces.

Ezel Findings Beading Pal

This was the big purchase though.  I FINALLY got an Ezel Findings Beading Pal.  My friend Meg at Bead My Love was at the show and she had a nice selection of them for sale.  I decided to go with hot pink.  I love this thing!  It makes traveling with your bead project so easy and convenient! I'll be taking this on the bead cruise for my bead embroidery/weaving class.

So this may have been one of the quickest trips to BF Spring ever, thanks to the oddly-timed spring snowstorm.  I'm just glad I got to spend a couple hours with my bead friends.  Looking forward to spending a weekend with them at Bead Fest August!

It's Our 4th Birthday and We Have a Surprise!

Thanks to Facebook's memories app, I was reminded that we kicked this project off April 17th, 2012. In that time, we've published over 1200 blog posts, hosted about 40 Component of the Month design challenges, an earring challenge, and several other challenges. We're written a plethora of tutorials, shared successes and failures. We love what we do and are so excited to continue. 

So to celebrate our birthday, we are going to select one lucky person to win all the components shown below:

How do you win? Leave a comment by this Saturday, April 23, 11:59 PM telling us why you like to read AJE. Edited to add: PLEASE leave an email or some way to contact you as clicking your name doesn't always give us any way to contact you! 

A New Joy

I have always loved teaching friends whether it was sewing, cross stitch or even making paper twist dolls.  It was fun to see the A-HA moments they have had.  I had wanted to get into teaching beading but the opportunity has never worked out.  So when the opportunity came to teach needle felting I jumped at the chance.

I told you in my last post about visiting a local shop looking for wool roving.  The owners Libby and Deb are so welcoming and they both have their specialties,  Deb is the rug hooking teacher and designer and Libby is the teacher of all things knitting and crochet.  They were both very enthusiastic about needle felting but neither had the time to learn so they approached me. The first thing I needed to do was pick a project.  I needed to pick something that I felt would get people excited and have all the elements to get them started with needle felting.

I choose the bear as the first project.  I knew it would be a challenge but it had so many of the elements needed.  Attaching limbs, shaping the head and adding eyes and noses.  The next step was to get a good idea of the amount of supplies needed.  I thought that would be tricky but I realized while I was making the samples for the class I just made equal amounts of wool for each element, one for the sample and the extra to be able to give each student the right quantity,  I was so nervous.  I had never taught strangers before.  I didn't know how it would turn out.  These ladies were awesome.  They were so much fun and and very enthusiastic.

I have really found a love of teaching.  I have taught 2 sets of classes and I even had one of my student repeat the class because she loved it so much.  Here are some highlights.

What was so much fun was seeing all the personalities that each bear became.

I cant wait to teach another class.