New Storage Container

Long time no post. I swear, various tech devices talk to each other, first the camera was acting up, and now it's my computer. (Though old camera was old and well used).

Anyways I wanted to write up a quick post to show one of my new storage containers. It's the 52 compartment Beadalon®, Bead Organizer. I took these photos almost 2 weeks ago when I had the camera out to take pictures of the cats. I have since added more beads and rings to this container. I'm actually thinking of getting a second one of these so my jump rings have their own container (I do some chainmaille).

This shot shows what I had in here as I started to put beads into the container. The one side is seed beads, and the other is findings and miscellaneous beads. My 3mm copper bicones are in there.


Here's a close up of the front left of the container. The smallest of the inner containers hold size 11 seed beads, while the ones behind them hold size 8. Farther back (outside of the frame of this image) I have size 6 (E) seed beads.

Storage in Progress

Last weekend I wrote about not having much luck finding a specific type of storage container for my beads. This picture shows the storage container that I'm looking for, with the smaller bead containers inside of it. I now have more beads then will fit in here which is why I was looking. (I ended up buying 2 bead storage/travel cases from Rings and Things Monday, which should be here soon).

There are three sizes of bead containers inside the storage bin, as seen in this picture. I've been buying these locally at Joanne's getting some of each size. The largest ones have 4 storage compartments, the medium have 5, and the small have 6. In general I use the smallest (6) for my seed beads, even up to size 6 seed (E) beads will fit depending on the quantity I've purchased. The medium are good for a larger quantity of seed beads along with some of the stone chips and medium beads. I have some 6 and 8mm rounds in these sizes. When buying 10mm beads the large containers work best, especially with a strand of cat's eye beads.

What is nice about these bead containers is the ability to open only the individual compartments for the beads I want to use. This is the large container here, with the pink cat's eye beads open. The other half of the container still has the lid on, which is handy to help avoid bead spills.




What one of the containers looks like with all the individual compartments separated. This is one of the medium containers with some stone chips, 8mm resin rounds, and a few random beads in the bottom one. The lid can be seen in the foreground of this photograph.

Some of the newer style of these containers come with a second lid, so that the stacks can be halved and still sealed. Which can be handy for a smaller storage space.


When I first started putting my beads in this storage system I had less supplies than I do now. I noticed that the Beadalon spools of stringing wire are a slight bit smaller in diameter then the large containers are. With the large containers being a slight bit shorter than the other containers, I could fit 2 spools of Beadalon on top of the large bead container and still close the lid on my storage bin. Though now with my larger supply I actually have my bead stringing wire in recycled plastic soup containers from the local grocery store. The soup containers are just a little wider than the Beadalon spools. I also have some Soft Flex, which those spools fit inside the backs of the Beadalon spools saving me a bit of space.


And this is my "to sort" storage bin. I've been tossing random beads and other craft supplies in here along with some other stuff. This is in addition to various plastic bags of beads and findings I have to store better. There is a finished necklace in this bin, along with a bracelet someone gave me which I need to fix the clasp on. There is also some sea glass and shells. I think the sea glass is store bought, rather than stuff I found. (Somewhere I have some pieces of sea glass I picked up from the shores of Lake Erie).

Storage Woes

Because my one bead container can hold no more of the round stack-able bead containers I decided to buy another container. As mentioned awhile back, I like the Sterilite show-off storage containers. The clips are secure, and there is one central handle in the lid for ease of carrying. Plus to their #1894 show-off is the perfect size for my bead containers height wise, with just a bit of extra room on top for a few plastic bags of purchases to be sorted.

Over the past 2 weeks I've stopped in a few different Target stores as I've been out. Each one I've had little luck finding any of the show-offs. They've had other Sterilite products in their stores, but not the specific style I'm looking for.

These are the show-offs which unfortunately the company doesn't sell directly. I've even checked Target's website, but they only have one Show-off, one to large for what I'm looking for. I even stopped over to Joann's website, which doesn't have to many show-offs either. I may have to stop in their store sometime, and can check then. I'm planning on buying more of the stack-able bead containers anyways. Rings and Things does have some of the stack-able containers, but only one size. I've found I like having the three different sizes for my different beads. Though I may add some to my cart the next time I'm buying other stuff from them. (It'll be interesting to see the threads on them, the ones I've been buying got redesigned at one point and have wider more stable threads).

Pretty much what it comes down to is when I store my beads I want something to put smaller containers in. Most of the bead storage stuff out there are the kind that the lid opens all the little bead pockets at once. Sure that's fine for some beads and findings, but I have way to many seed beads for something like that. Which is why I like the stack-able containers, only the beads I am currently using are open. Even for my larger (8 to 10mm) beads I like the stack-ables for. And it's also nice that I don't have each type of bead in it's own container flying around a bigger storage thing.

I'll say, storing my beads was so much easier when I didn't have so many.

Update 10:56 PM Eastern time
Because I'm to tired for a full new blog post. I just wanted to add that I chose two of the storage cases from Rings and Things and ordered them this afternoon. I chose ground shipping to save money over air, so it'll take longer then the usual 2 days of Priority Mail.

New Camera!

My husband and I got a new camera, to replace the previous one which is pretty much shot. The light sensor isn't functioning, and the model is old enough that Olympus doesn't carry parts to fix it anymore. That's alright, we'd gotten plenty of use out of the old camera.

To celebrate the new camera, I decided to enter the "Your Designs Rock" contest over at Rings and Things. I sketched out a design earlier this month, then ordered parts from R&T the other week. Thursday I finished the necklace and earrings and will be working on submitting the pictures to the contest. I had been tempted to enter earlier, but with the camera issue I wasn't sure.

Showing off what the new camera can do:

Now this isn't the piece I'm entering in the contest. I am going to wait to show it off until later. This necklace I made back in October with beads I bought with birthday money. The lovely agate stone I picked up from my local bead store. I also made matching earrings, which I didn't take pictures of yet.

The light wasn't the best today as it's a bit overcast, but the pictures for the contest turned out well. This particular necklace didn't do to bad considering it has quite a bit of dark purple in it. As we get more settled into the house I do want to set up a light box for my jewerly pictures to decrease my dependency on sunlight. (It's now light out when I get home from work during the week, but the sun is low enough that I'm still waiting for weekends to get decent light).

Here's a close up of the stone with the second strand above it. I used silver colored copper wire to hang the stone on and did a coil at the bottom. For this shot I hung the necklace on the display stand I made this morning. I cut apart a cardboard box then covered it with some printer paper. My contest necklace has enough little hanging pieces that it photographed better not laying flat.

The only editing I did with these images was cropping and resizing.

Camera Fail

So I finally got around to getting the camera out, to take some nicer pictures of my newest pieces of jewelry, and didn't have much luck. My cell phone does have a camera feature, but it's not quite as nice as an actual camera.

But this is what I got instead. Even in this small thumbnail version the washed out colors are obvious. On the regular sized (click said thumbnail) pixels around the edges can be seen. I did have problems with the pixels the last time I used the camera, but the colors weren't nearly this bad.

I didn't adjust the image at all, this is directly from the camera and uploaded.

This is what it did to the great outdoors. We do have snow, so the ground is white, but the rest of the image shouldn't be those colors. I did take that image through the glass, which I've done before without this issue.

This (DeviantArt link) is how the camera normally takes pictures, I took this picture back in May. Again, there is no adjusting on the computer.

I tried various flash settings, with letting the camera decide to use it, to forcing the flash, and I got the same results.

Have Pin Vise...

I've been using the pin vise I bought back in December from Rings and Things, and it's quite the handy tool. I'm working on a few things at once with it.

This is one of the projects I'm working on, a purple and copper necklace. I used 22 gauge copper wire for the pendant and rings, all cut from the same length of twisted wires. I used two lengths of the purple wire and one of the copper color. For the twisting I had my nylon jaw pliers on one end, and the pin vise on the other. Once the wire was twisted I used my round nose pliers to shape the little rings and the pendant.

The next work in progress is inspired by one of the stories from Catherynne Valente's Omikuji Project, The Apple Tree at the End of the World.

I also used 22 gauge copper wire for this, twisting three strands together with the pin vise for the smaller branches. Where the smaller branches form the limb, I hand twisted them together. I twisted the smaller branches together first, then added the apples and the leaves. One apple is 8mm while the other is 6, I figured that would help give the finished tree some perspective.

I still have yet to make more branches, and once I have the tree all assembled I'll work on shaping the branches and limbs more.

The third pin vise project has no pictures. Tonight and last night I've been doing some work with 20 gauge copper wire for earrings. Using two strands (one gold color, one copper) twisted together I've made some loops, which I'll hang some beads in the center of. It was a little tricky to get the 20g wire into the vise, but still possible.

For the twisting, I found that the nylon jaw pliers work well with the pin vise. I first secured the ends into the vise. Then I slid the pliers down the wires to make sure they were even against each other. The next step was to clamp down on the ends in the jaws of the pliers. I also found that it helps to bend the wires over the far side of the pliers jaws, in a nice right angle. When I first was twisting wires together, they slid around in the pliers. Bending them helped keep them in place.

Chainmaille Set

Well, long time no post. Now that the holidays are over and I'm getting back into my usual routine here is something I've recently made. I started working on this set back in December, between Christmas gifts for friends and family. The choker is 14 inches long, with a bit of an extender chain built in, and the earrings are about an inch or so long.

The weave on these is European 4 in 1, which is a standard maille weave. The double colored diamond pattern I found in a beading magazine I picked up two summers ago. I'm not sure of the ring sizes they had recommended, I ended up picking out sizes and colors at my local bead store that I figured would work well. I've done this pattern before with these size rings, and I've had good luck. These rings work especially well with the earrings. When making a bracelet with larger rings, a single diamond unit felt a bit to heavy to be an earring, but these ones are light weight enough.


Here are the earrings, the same rings as I used with the choker. The earring findings I've had awhile now, and they happened to go well with the rings.

For the rings, I used D20 EC. The AR is 4, D is 1/8 of an inch, and they are made out of 20 gauge wire. They aren't labeled as to what metal they are made out of, but they look like aluminum (I cut one in half, it's not copper, and to soft to be steel).

As I unpack from moving and find the magazine I'll post the details for that issue so others can find the pattern. (Not that it's that complicated). The trick to the diamonds is to have the last row of rings facing the same way as the first row in the next diamond. That way they are less likely to twist around. I'm not counting the single connector ring as a row here.