So I Needed to get Organized!

Sorry for the lack of posts here recently! I was so in need of organization that I decided to take a week off  and get crackin'! Wish I had taken some "before" pics... suffice it to say it was pretty bad! That squeaky clean desk you see before you now was covered in boxes, mail, beads, glue spots, random puzzle pieces, receipts, ribbon, buttons and even my daughter A's broken princess crown I promised I'd fixed two months ago!

 So here's what I did! As a lot of artists/designers are, I need to be able to "see" all my beads, settings, and findings in order to come up with designs. With most desks this means that a constant pile of components are cluttering the desk making for little actual workspace. So I bought a beautiful desk from IKEA and purchased a vintage printer press drawer to slide under the glass. This way I can see through the glass to a sample of the majority of my beads. I can simply pull out the drawer whenever I need to get at anything. More little wooden cubbies slid under to top, hold paper, lace, ribbon and bezels.

Whenever I thought about what my ideal working space would include I knew I needed shelves so, again, I could see a lot of my supplies. Since we live in a very small apartment and my desk, as you can see by the top picture, is located very central to our living area without any extra room, it was next to impossible to set up a great set of shelves like I had envisioned so instead I rummaged through our very cluttered closet (next organizational project) and found a very shallow black shelf, also from IKEA and glued with E6000 some canning jars under the shelf. The key was to allow the glue to dry for about a day before hanging the shelf. Now I can easily unscrew the canning jars and get to all of my goodies! On top of the shelf, small plastic screwtop containers hold findings, small random recycled glass jars hold other beads, as well as scissors, glue and pliers.
Now there's a strict policy in my home! No one, other than me, puts anything on that desk! No piles of mail, toys, or other paraphernalia! And so far, to my astonishment, it's stayed clean!