Making Shapes, and Organizing, Again

So, I've been working on making shapes, but not just any shape. I love gingko trees, and the shapes of their leaves.  For the longest time, I've been wanting to bead a piece with gingko leaves.

I'm well aware of the award-winning Gingko Leaf necklace done by Diane Fitzgerald, but because I want to be able to sell my own pieces, I won't seek to copy her technique or buy the kit she sells to learn how she does it. I'm experimenting on my own, and learning things in the process. Pretty neat things.

Pictured are my two first test runs. I started each with a line of ladder stitch, then built off there in a brick stitch, only with 2 beads instead of 1 in each stitch.  I found out I'm very impatient with ladder stitch, I never make the string long enough to get the final leaf big enough after the curve starts to grow. I have to work on that.

I thought I wouldn't like brick stitch, since I like doing peyote so much and I haven't worked much in brick stitch before this. But brick works up so much more quickly than peyote it's amazing.  Maybe just this stitch, because I'm using more than one bead per stitch. I've never tried two-drop peyote, and I probably should.

Sorry for the blurriness of the closeup of the leaf, I'm still wrassling with the camera a bit. Depth of field, anyone?

I found out that if you skip threads every few stitches you can work just about any curve into your stitching that you want to with the brick stitch. It leaves triangular holes, though. Currently, I'm pretending my leaf got nibbled on by a triangular caterpillar. Yeah, that works. The lacy effect is nice, but my holes aren't very consistent as I just inserted a skipped stitch where I thought the curve needed it, rather than in a planned, patterned fashion.  Perhaps that will change as I practice it more.

After I finished the curved part, and had beaded to the center, something really cool happened. The far edges had curved far enough that the end beads were perpendicular to the center beads. So I couldn't do brick stitch all the way across and I wanted to build up the back side of the leaf. So, on the far edges of the leaf, I transitioned to peyote stitch. The ends of the brick stitch rows worked perfectly as a base for peyote. So I did peyote-brick-peyote in each row, making the brick stitch transition from one bead to two beads to build up the center. This part ended up a bit lumpy and off-center, but I'll get better at that. It was surprisingly easy just to find a spot to put that next bead where I wanted it. 

Then I finished with some ladder stitch for the stem. I think it needs to be more substantial, though. More on this as it develops. I actually have some ideas for the December Etsy Beadweaver's Street Team challenge using these leaf shapes.

On to organization. I have posted a few times before on details of most of my organizational plan for beads, seed beads, tools, etc, using storage items and software. Follow the link to see that group of posts, which also include links to sources for all the storage boxes, cases and drawers I use.

Now I've got nearly the final piece of the entire system I had in mind from the start in place. Note the new black wire cubes on and next to the desk! I found two sets of four cubes (this cube system is everywhere) at a true bargain at Bed, Bath & Beyond (I almost typed "Bead, Bath, etc, don't we wish?) for $19.95 for 4, plus I used a 20% off coupon for each set, so $16 each. 

They don't give you but two internal shelves with each set, but I didn't make all the cubes, so I had plenty of racks left which I just wired into place for the additional shelves. Strangely, I had plenty of wire on hand. ;)

I finally have a place to keep all my seed bead cases (my little flip-top square tubes fit inside) where they're not piled up so the one I want is always on the bottom! Those are on the left of the lamp. The project boxes have their own section to the right of the lamp, my magazines and books are all together, and now all four of the bead and tool drawer sets will fit under the desk when I'm not working. 

I feel now like I can put my hands on what I want all the time, like I have the ability to keep the desk from looking like a tornado hit every time I work.  The final piece will be storage containers for the larger strands of beads like coral and turquoise where I buy 1" or larger beads. But right now, with economics not so great, I'll stick with labeled zip-top bags for those.  One thing beaders have plenty of is zip-top bags. 

And I have a storage system and workspace that I'm proud to have in my living room. Now I just have to get the rear-view mirror set up so I can watch TV over my shoulder while I bead.  I'm always thinking.

I Feel Better Now

Sorta.

I feel better because all my bead stash from our trip (see previous post) is now entered in the software, and labeled and file into the storage drawers. My workspace is once again functional, if not as clean and tidy as I want it to be.

Only sorta better, because I ran out of larger storage boxes, which are no longer available from Harbor Freight. I never had the largest size I needed for really substantial strings of stones like turquoise and coral, and right at the moment, I can't hunt for substitutes because we're on an austerity drive due to lack of income. That's right, I've got to put my beads in plastic bags for now. Makes me a little bit crazy. Plastic bags don't stack, they don't arrange, and it's not as easy to sift through them to see what's in those drawers.

But the plastic bags are labeled, systematically. They're in the right color-category drawers.  Someday I'll have the cash to get storage boxes again. Maybe for the large beads I'll use small food-storage containers. That might be about the right size.

Another thing that's driving me antsy is the lack of a camera. I swear every two seconds I think, "I'll just take a picture of that and post it...oh crap." I've sent the camera off to Canon for a free repair of the CCD card, but it's going UPS Ground from California to Virginia, so it could take a bit. My posts are going to be photo-free and a bit boring until it's fixed.

I want to show you all the new Cellini spiral I'm doing.   It's lovely, with 6/0 gold beads as the spine and purple and iridescent green/purple beads in the spiral. I think I may make it long enough for a necklace.

I also ran across a book I got several months ago on netting techniques by Diane Fitzgerald, and then when I was storing away these 3mm peridot round beads I got to thinking....oh my. A netted necklace in peridot with some drop beads, perhaps citrine, would be lovely, wouldn't it?

Oh, and I want to get more listings up on Etsy. Right Now. Not going to happen until the camera comes home.

Inspiration comes to us as we do other things. Particularly when that other thing is handling beads. 

Back to work, so when the camera arrives I can spring into action.  Happy Sunday, all. Get beading!

Philosophy of Bead Organization, Again, With Sources

More answers for Aleta, she asked if I separated my beads by type, or color.

Two main divisions, of course, are seed beads and not-seed-beads.   Seed beads go in flip-top containers I buy from Dee's Beads. These are then stored by size in project cases from Stacks & Stacks.  I can get a lot of those containers, of various sizes, into the project cases in one layer. But I still just had to divide my size 11/0 round seed beads into two project cases, as I had too many to stay in a single layer in one. So now one is yellows, greens, oranges and clear/metallic, the other is the darker colors.   I have one single container for bugles, triangles, drop beads and other oddities, and one apiece for 8/0 rounds, and 15/0 round beads.

Then all my not-seed-beads go into small plastic boxes, as seen here, inside the storage drawers from Stacks & Stacks.  These are all by color, except of course, there are a few things that just don't fit into the normal categories. 

The small plastic boxes come packaged inside larger, 6" x 9" x 2" boxes from Harbor Freight. In the stores, they also sell boxes filled with the double-size mini-boxes, but it doesn't seem like they do on the website. A small box is 1 7/8" square, and will hold hundreds of small beads or about 50 6mm beads. The larger mini-box will hold a strand of fairly large beads, anything smaller than 1" fits fine. A few strands I have are far too large for these boxes, I leave them in the plastic bags they come in. Not many, though. If I unstring the larger beads, they fit in the boxes very well. 

I have a special drawer for cabochons, and another for what I call "special beads." Those include the large metal beads, vintage pieces, and very expensive beads that I want front and center when I'm considering the focal bead for my next piece.   The "miscellaneous" drawer also offers quite a bit of inspiration. I found some tumbled sea glass bits designed for filling vases at Bed, Bath and Beyond that I think would work into something nice. 

The numbers you see on the small boxes in the drawers refer to my inventory software, which assigns the numbers that I apply with my labeler.  That way, when I count the beads used in the finished piece, I know how much the piece cost me in materials. Labor, now that's another story. Does any artist really get paid a good rate for their time? Other than, say a stripper?

Okay, back to Aleta's comments. Ahem. She said she has her seed beads in tubes. Most of mine are originally in tubes but I transfer them all to the flip-tops, as I said. With tubes, I find, as they accumulate, unless you have something like a tube-holder, they tend to lie on top of one another and hide what's below. And that bothers me no end. The thought that the very color I'm seeking is hiding from me. I have unexpected quirks that this organizational effort is revealing to me. The flat-sided flip-tops I use let me line everything up next to each other. No color shall hide! All will be revealed!!  Even those bead pavilion things, though, hide the colors of the tubes on the inside. 

Now I'm still searching for some kind of rack that will contain those project cases, each in it's own slot. That will make it much easier for me to extract the one single case I need to peruse. Right now it seems like they're always stacked up with the one I want at the bottom. How does that work? Why is it always at the bottom?  Seems like random chance alone would put it on the top sometimes, doesn't it?

I can organize beads. I can make jewelry and art pieces. Now, can I sell them? That's the next logical step, isn't it?