Organization Inspiration - Part 1: My Beading Tools

I thought you might be interested in some inspiration of a different sort. This afternoon I took photos of my beading "studio" to give you some storage and organization ideas. My workspace is actually in our living room and I sit on the couch to do my beading. Because we live in such a small house, I keep most of my tools and supplies on and under the coffee table as you can see below:

If we have company, I can pretty quickly stash everything on the floor of the bedroom closet or out in the garage temporarily. Although all that stuff doesn't do much for the decor, I sure like having everything so handy at all times. I don't think I'd like having to drag everything out of storage every time I want to do some beading.

I will be getting more of the smaller square Snapware containers soon. I just ordered the last two sets they had in stock (3 trays in each) from Amazon today for a really good price. The ones I have are getting very full (as you'll see another day) and it will be nice to spread out my beads a little more so that I won't need to dump out a whole tray to find the color I want.

Over the next few days I'll post pictures of what's inside all of those drawers and containers. Today I'll start with the Snapware container that's sitting on top of the coffee table as well as the one under the table on the far right. I keep my tools and supplies, and basically everything other than beads, in those two containers.

This container holds the tools that I use every time I do my beading. The top tray holds my scissors, needles and thread plus a few other items such as pliers. I use the small funnel to pour seed beads back into their tubes using a teaspoon which you can just barely see on the right. I took a hint from Rachael Ray and use that little metal bowl as my "garbage bowl". As I'm working, I put thread scraps and bad beads in there. It also just happens to be just the right size for my FireLine spools when everything is packed up for the day. The empty little black plastic box in the picture is where I keep my leftover bits of thread that are long enough for making samples.

In case you're wondering why I have my spools of thread in little bags, it's because I've come up with a trick for dispensing my thread. I just reach into the bag and pull out the end of the thread and the spool unwinds inside the bag as I pull off the length of thread that I need. The bag keeps the thread from unraveling and making a tangled mess in my kit.

In the next two photos you can see the cute little plastic containers where I store needles and smaller spools of thread. I got those at The Container Store. The black area that you see under the needles is a thin sheet of self-adhesive magnet. I cut it to size and stuck it to the bottom of the case. The needles stick to the magnet so they don't fall out when I tip the container.

The thread box used to be packed full of small spools of thread but I don't buy the small ones anymore and those are all that I've got left of them. I'm sure that I'll find another use for it once those are gone.

This next photo is the bottom tray of that stack. In that one I keep little plastic zipper bags and a few other useful items. You'll find out what the markers are for another day, unless you've already guessed. Those little white pieces of paper in the clear canisters are bits of scrap card stock that I use to jot down the bead colors for my projects. More about that another day too.

A few things in that tray that you can't really see are my bracelet size templates, a metric ruler and a small notepad. There are also two plastic storage boxes with my earring wires. I got those at Hobby Lobby.

This is the large Snapware container that I keep under the table:

 I keep my clasps and jump rings in the top tray of that container. There's also space along the side to keep spare empty bead tubes.

I found the small compartment boxes at Dollar Tree where they sell the tools. They come with nuts and bolts and that sort of thing in them. They're great for a buck each and I might actually find a use for the nuts and bolts one day.

I got the compartment boxes holding my clasps in the fishing department at Walmart.

The bottom tray contains storage boxes holding miscellaneous findings such as bails and necklace chains. There are also spare spools of Nymo and FireLine as well as a spare container of Thread Heaven.