In any jewelry designer's life there is that feeling of dread after the excitement of purchasing or receiving an order of new supplies comes in. That little voice in your head asks, "Where are you going to keep this?" As you look over to the growing pile of huge boxes, piles, and homeless strands amidst the wire jungle and nearly trip over illusion cord to walk over to your supplies, it dawns on you: there has to be a better way.
The Better Way
I have been creating jewelry for about 10 years, but I have been doing it seriously for about 4. My home studio is one bedroom, which isn't a second bedroom in my apartment devoted solely to jewelry, it's literally my bedroom, as well. Once it got to a point where I, very literally, had one path of carpet showing from my door to my bed, which I sat in to do my jewelry work, I realized that I needed to come up with a better way of storing my jewelry and my supplies. The solution was seemingly too simple. But it does work.
I started using the wonderful Ziploc baggies. At first, I thought it wouldn't work. Certainly it is a far cry from having one room devoted strictly to supplies with strands hanging beautifully on stands as in a craft shop. But let's be honest, sometimes that just isn't possible. So this was the best way to make it work.
Organizing The Beads and Baubles
I use one baggie per supply. For instance, if I have three strands of blue crystal rondelles, I put all three strands in one snack size baggie. (At craft stores you can also find even smaller baggies, so you can store the things you only have a few of.) Of course, you could have 20 strands of crystal, and 20 bags is hardly any more organized than a million boxes. So I have large baggies in which I place all of the like items together. You can organize this any way you want. I like to organize it by color. You might want to organize it by material. Or maybe by supplier. Either way, it's up to you, but the small bags within big bags solution works great. You can label the outside, and put a small piece of paper in each bag stating unit price, supplier, material, whatever you like.
The large baggies are stackable, hangable, easily storeable. So instead of tons of bulky boxes, you can easily narrow down your supply to a couple under-the-bed sized storage boxes, and maybe one of those 3-drawer plastic storage containers. Mess simplified!
Not Just for Jewels
You don't make jewelry? No problem. I do many forms of artisan work, and I use this organizational method for all of my supplies. I use it for embroidery thread, packs of needles, yarn, crochet needles, knitting needles, pattern books, paint, brushes, silk florals, and more.
I hope this has been a helpful article for you, and that your crazy artist abode might become a bit more organized and easier to manage.
Go make something amazing!
