The Beading Space

Beading spaces tend to attract clutter (come on, I know it's just not mine), the put aside projects, beads from the last project, or three, that didn't make it back to their allotted place, those invoices that need to be filed, tools, thread and the scraps of paper or note books ideas get hastily scribbled into.

If you're lucky enough to have a beading room you can close the door on that mess when visitors stop by but if you bead in your living room you may find yourself pretending not to be home.

I am lucky enough to be able to use my second bedroom as an office/bead room however when I was ill sitting upright in an office chair was painful and I wasn't able to do it for more than 30 minutes at a time. I had planned only to use my office to write tutorials, the beading would be done in the living room from my spot ("it faces the television at an angle that is neither direct so that it would discourages conversations nor at an angle that would causes a parallax distortion"...Sheldon Cooper).

So this is my spot.

And as a beader my spot has to have easy access to my beads, all my go to beads are right there and .....hidden here...

To keep it all tidy I found the wonderful 'Bento' boxes, this one not having any projects in it's pockets so far :) And those pockets fold away too.

The tray lids have become my new project boards, lined with a bead mat and I have more lids than boxes because they stack nicely and I can have multiple projects going without having work trays everywhere.

Now, I will tell you there is a down side to this....the corners on these trays can grab your thread as you work, if you're anything like me my thread manages to get wrapped around anything within three feet. That said, it gets less so the more I work with them and the tidiness I get from the trays outweighs the thread catches.  And yes...that little white tray holding the current beads in use is a water color palette, 79c from the art store.

Another little thing I have at my beady little fingers is a thread catcher.

My prototype...lol! Just a sticky paper rolled on itself and stuck on the side of my cube shelf but boy, it's great for storing the usable bits of fireline that used to get lost or trailed across the room.

So, there you have it....how I keep my beading area tidy enough for visitors.  Of course the rest of the living room is covered with Bella's toys and the kleenex she just tore up so I may pretend to not be home for that reason....but Bella's fault!