Organize Your Seed Beads
by Tammy Honaman, Author, Jewelry-Making Expert and Educator, Exclusively for Fire Mountain Gems and Beads®
Part of cleaning up my studio space involved grouping like items together. After getting the packs of seed beads organized and into storage bins, I realized I was missing out on a great opportunity to let them help dress up the place and lend some color to the white bookcases. To take advantage of all their beauty and keep them organized, I transferred the Dyna-Mites™ and the Delica® seed beads into 5x9/16" vials. I then placed the vials into clear plastic organizers like the one pictured below.
This brightened up the place and helped me see and appreciate the beads I have, and see what I am missing!
There are three elements to keep in mind when you're assigning storage units for your seed beads.
- First, use see-through containers only. The biggest draw with seed beads is their color, so make it easy to identify them by sight.
- Second, store grams of like seed beads in individual containers. Zip-bags, tubes, jars or boxes are all great options and will ensure you don't end up with a mixed seed bead ''soup.'' Keeping like beads in separate containers not only makes for easy cleanup but is also very important when designing as it enables you to hold one seed bead color up to another to see if the colors complement each other.
- Finally, make labels for your containers indicating size, shape and origin. For example, keep your Japanese size 11/0s in one storage unit, your Czech size 11/0s in another, your size 8/0s and 6/0s in a third, and your cylinder beads in a fourth. This makes it especially simple to retrieve specific types of seed beads for a project.
Here Are A Few Storage Ideas to Get Your Seed Bead Organization Underway:
Screw-together Space Saver jars are an innovative way to store any size seed bead. These clear plastic containers are made up of individual jars that screw together into a column. Keep like colors together in the same column so you can quickly eye the perfect match for your project. If you have a color you'd like to add, just twist it on! Then, twist the individual colors for your project from their columns and build a new column, making your project portable. Add another Space Saver jar to the column for needles and thread, and you've got a perfect on-the-go storage unit.
Clear plastic organizer cases are a dream for the person with a rainbow selection of seed beads. And there are many versions and sizes to choose from, each with its own collection of different or like-sized boxes. To whip an unruly seed bead collection into shape:
- Fill each small container with seed beads
- Fill the large organizer with all the same-sized seed beads
- Label the bead size on the side of the organizer
If you want instant access to your seed beads, place seed beads in plastic vials and store them upright in a wooden tool organizer.
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