A Studio Clean-up

Once in awhile the whole thing gets away from me and it is time to heed those dreaded words 'clean the studio'.  I can happily report that my studio stays a lot neater in my life as a 'beader' than it did when I was working with book art -- BUT how those beads can get out of hand!!!  Then there are those 'things' that I've saved because someday I might use them.  I'm not a big saver or collector so I have to put on my 'art hat' the one that tells me 'don't just throw everything out'.  There is a 'law of disposal' you know -- that as soon as you get rid of it, you need it!!  I've been known to donate something to the thrift store and then go back and buy it back a week later (hoping its still there).

And so, with spring outside it was time for a clean sweep.  I went through each container of beads, I put all the colors together on shelves, I bought new plastic canisters to add to my collection. Note: the above picture is only a 'fraction' of my bead collection *smile*.


I love those decorated boxes that you can buy, I have LOTS of them - but I can't continue to stuff things into them, until their lids won't close anymore - so the lids came off and I sorted and folded and reorganized.  The fun thing about this is that I found items I had forgotten that I had.  Several of these came to rest on my worktable so that I can use them in something yet unplanned.

Now, you ask - did you also 'clean' your worktable?  Well, no -- I mean its 'sort of' organized - but I MUST leave things strewn hither and yon - bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsom to inspire me.  I love to stop a beading piece and just run my fingers through cabochons that are sitting in a bowl, or pick up the feather and shell that sit in another bowl.  No sterile work table for me.  But hey, I can now pick out beads from their color grouping without having to sort and sort and sort.  So that's enough progress for this spring -- after all there's always time to clean but right now I have to get back to beading.

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries". - A.A. Milne