Jewelry Making 101: Organization

Before you learn how to make jewelry, you need to know how to adequately organize your beads and other jewelry making supplies. Watch this video tutorial and read our tips on jewelry organization.

How to Organize Your Beads:

Organizing your beads is a personal preference. For me, I like to organize my beads mostly by type. For instance, I want all my seed beads grouped together as well as my colorful plastic beads for kids. I then try and separate my beads by color. Notice I emphasized the word “try”. I don't always succeed in doing this because it can get confusing at times if I purchase more beads. Tip: Make certain you label your beads and findings and where you purchased them! Also, if you can, write down the price! You'll thank yourself later.
Other ways of organizing your beads is to group them by frequency of use. I use my round glass beads very often, so I put them where I can easily find them. You could also group your beads by shapes and sizes.

I have organized my beads at least ten times since I started jewelry making. If one method doesn't work out for you, try another. Just something to keep in mind!

How to Organize Your Findings:

Since findings are used for almost every beading project, you need a convient way of storing them and an easy way of accessing them. For the longest time, I stored my findings in little bags in a sewing organizer. It worked for me, but I was never really satisfied with that method. It was difficult at times to find the exact finding I was looking for. Recently, I transferred my findings to a storage box with removable slots. I absolutely love this method because I can just take the storage box to my work table and it's very easy to find what I am looking for.

How to Organize Your Tools:

On your work table you will need to have your tools at hand reach, thus a tool organizer is a must. There are many different kinds of tool organizers out there, but you could also try making one yourself.

I like to play with papier mache once in a while and one day I decided to make a tool organizer with papier mache. I looked at pictures of tool organizers online and made mine out of cardboard and newspaper. It does the job and that's all I need it to do!