About a year ago, I was in the middle of expanding my bead storage, by which I mean transferring from existing containers to larger ones, because my stash seems to have exploded when I was not looking. I did the blues (I store by colour) and then got stalled and haven't done the rest.
Then I discovered that I'm more into bead-weaving these days, and for bead-weaving, the size of beads are important. The most-used size is 4mm but 3mm, 5mm, and 6mm are also used occasionally... And for seed beads, the most-used size is 11/0 but 15/0s are also frequently used and occasionally 8/0s are needed.
I had already stored my seed beads separately, so that was not a problem, and I had also stored 4mm Chinese glass bicones and 4mm faceted round Chinese glass crystals separately. But now I also have 4mm pearls, 4mm unfaceted round glass beads, 4mm semi-precious stone beads... and what about the 6mm? Do I store them separately by size or put them in my original containers where my beads are sorted by colour?
The other beads probably would be used for stringing or other techniques. I had stored them by colour because I figured when I try to select beads for a design and match them up with each other, I match them by colour. But within a box of dark blues, all the various shapes and sizes of beads are bagged up in little ziplock baggies to keep the different types of beads separate. So that means, when I open the box, I cannot at one glance see all the options that are available.
I liked keeping the beads in baggies because then I could just grab the bag and did not need to leave a container open on my table, taking up space; and also, I didn't have to worry about possibly accidentally jolting it and knocking a bunch of different beads into a bead soup on the floor!
But recently, I was at a friend's place and we were making earrings together. She had all her beads spread out on the table and it helped so much for me to be able to see all the options available in order to match various shapes and sizes and finishes together to create simple earrings. Now I'm rethinking my bead organisation again!! Omg!!!
