For a long time now (many, many months) as I've chosen beads for projects I've been very naughty and not put them back again, instead putting them into an increasingly growing pile.

As my bead boxes are getting emptier, and the pile is getting bigger, and I'm still not up to beading or working on the computer for long I figured it was about time I dealt with it and tidied up.

I'm often asked if I store my beads by colour or number and the answer is...both.

I keep all my seed beads organised by colour and size and exactly how depends on how many of that particular category I own i.e. green 11s have their own box whilst all sizes of lilac beads share a box. My delicas/ Cylinder beads are stored by colour (as you can see here as I'm tidying all the tubes and bags away) as that is how I generally need to find them and when I need a colour and have no particular number in mind I go through them all to see what I find. All my 'feature beads' are stored by type i.e. bicone crystals, lampwork, gemstones etc as again this is how I'd look for them.

Tidying up was fun and I am always surprised by the clash between the beads I seem to own versus the beads I use. For example, I own a lot of neutrals/ creams/ browns etc yet I think I rarely use them. Do I own so many because I don't use them up or because I'm drawn to buying them again again either because I love them or think I probably don't have many of them when I really do? I have no idea but I have learnt today that I really need to be better at putting my beads away in future!