The Bead Shak - Tips & Techniques

Fun & Original Bead Patterns

Discover how fun & easy it can be! Bead a Banner!
Key Chains, Sun Catchers, Friendship Pins & More!

Storing Your Beads - Article

In the previous article, we discussed hemp cording, one type of cording that can be used for beading. We have decided this month to go in a bit of a different direction and discuss storing your beads! So what do we do with all of this, how do we store it and in what?
We asked some of our members of the Bead Shak Chat group how and what they stored their beads in. The ladies in the group do a range of beading from beading earrings, bracelets using swarovski crystal beads, seeds beads, others do safety pin projects using faceted beads or ee beads for friendship pins and then pony beads or mini beads for the beaded banners. Here are some of the storage ideas that the ladies use themselves! Thank you to each of you for your suggestions! We appreciate them!

BJ, one of our members, graciously shared some pictures with us of her craft room and how she stores all her beads, patterns, kits, and as well her work table! Thanks BJ for submitting this to us. Click on the pics to view them full size. BJ has a great supply of everything and she is very well organized!

BJ wrote:
"I store my pony & faceted beads in Rubbermaid plastic shoe storage boxes, each box will hold 5 thousand pony beads"

Another great idea came from one of our members Irene who wrote:
"I have a drawer in my chest of drawers that is beads only. In there I have plastic divided craft boxes and a plastic tackle box and some basic plastic containers."

Adele wrote in to say:
"I use plastic containers, and the small bead containers, for my Delicas and seed beads. For the larger beads I use Zip lock bags and store them in the plastic 3 drawer containers."

Pamela submitted her way of storing beads and taking beads with you wherever you go: "I went to a dollar store by my house and bought embroidery floss boxes that are plastic . I sort my beads in them each box having a different color. Then I put those boxes in one of those roll away suitcases because I take my beads to work and when I visit lol, Any excuse to bead."

As you can see from the suggestions above everybody stores their beads differently according to what type of beads they use to the space that they have in their homes to store them.

We have listed here some other storage container suggestions and these are just a few! Remember you can recycle a lot of containers you might find in your home saving you money.

Yogurt containers

Margarine containers

Pill storage containers for seed beads, the flip top kind

Aspice rack filled with all your favorite beads is a great way to store them

The twist and pour pill dispenser container is another great way to store your beads

Containers and cabinets from your local hardware store that are meant for nails and hardware make fantastic cabinets to store beads in. Some of these cabinets have wheels on them so they can be moved around from room to room. The drawers in these cabinets that are meant for nails and small workshop items are a perfect place to stores those small beads or extra beading supplies

With us all having computers and probably buying the 50 pack of cd's, don't throw out that container! Fill the top with your beads and use the bottom for the top and you have another great storage container for your beads and they stack on top of each other as well!

Zip lock plastic bags are great for this purpose, they come in all sizes, you can see exactly what is in the bag and about how much and they store flat

At the local dollar store there are freezer containers that come in all sizes and shapes with lids and are very inexpensive and these can be stacked one on top of the other to save you space

We store our beads in ziplock plastic bags, and then put them into one of those large under the bed storage totes that have wheels, they store flat, the container can be moved from one room to another and put under the bed or couch out of site. This under the bed storage tote holds a lot of ziplock bags and if one of the bags breaks open its not a big mess like it would be normally when things get scattered all over the floor.

As always the internet is a great source of information for bead storage containers and where you can buy them if your looking for something in particular.

Labeling Ideas
As most of you know from working with any kinds of beads that the bead and color of the beads varies from company to company, white or red with one company is just a little different shade to the next company, even sometimes the sizes tend to be just a little different in some of the pony beads in particular its noticeable.

When we get new beads we open the bags and then cut out the labels from the bead bags as carefully as we can, making sure to include there the company name, the product number, the color number and any important information that you think you might need later on if you want to re order or add more beads to that container. The labels that we have cut out we tape onto the front of the container or slip it into the ziplock bag that you have your beads in. This way you will always have that information handy, and when you doing your projects you won't be noticing a slightly different color of bead or size of bead in your project which we know has happened to us and you may not notice it at the time of beading but it sure does show up when your done and looking at it the next day!

If anybody has any other storage container ideas we would love to hear from you about what you use or suggest! We will use these ideas in upcoming newsletters!

Archived Articles
Special thanks to Jan for putting these articles together for us. Most of these are from past newsletters so you might have read them already, but it's always great to brush up on information.

Have Something You Would Like To Share?
Email us your tips & we'll share them here for our visitors.