Saturday, February 14, 2009

How NOT to make Bead Soup

Bead Soup - it's a great thing - there's a lot of fun things you can do with bead soup.

You know what bead soup is, right? - It's all those leftover beads, different sizes, shapes, colors; leftover from previous projects, waiting to make themselves useful in some way.

Beadweavers, especially, have a unique type of bead soup, because it tends to be chock full of those teeny-tiny little beads - you know, the 11s, the 15's, the delicas, the Charlottes.

And people manage their bead soup in different ways - some just dump it all into a big tub, or bag, and use it randomly.

I, with my advanced OCD (that's AOCD, to you lay folk), have to organize my bead soup - both by color, and by size.

So I had (HAD) about 10 little tubs, each separated compulsively by color, made up of the beads generally smaller than 4 mm.

And about 10 large tubs, again separated by color, containing all those extra beads over 4-6 mm.

This was working SO well for me, until about 11:45 this morning.


When the shelf, in my BRAND NEW cabinet, where I had carefully,. compulsively stowed these tubs, decided to collapse while I had the cabinet open -

And this is the result.

Thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands of beads, spilled all over my back room.

And quite a few naughty words shrieked when those beads dumped on my feet.

It took about an hour to scoop all these up - we used a dustpan, and just dumped them into a big box, and I'll undoubtedly be bringing that box home with me tomorrow night to sort, because it is driving me insane that they are now comingling.

I WOULD have brought them home tonight, except that tonight I have to do the monthly sales tax report AND price out all the new beads I bought yesterday from the traveling bead vendor.

What a fantastic way to spend Valentine's Day!



This is a nice shot of the gorgeous sun-catcher/ornaments that are displayed on the door to my shop - they are all made by the extremely talented Mike, of GimmeBeads.

Here's a set they have displayed in their Etsy shop.

Nice, nice work -

Happy Valentine's Day - I hope you are having more fun than I am!

7 comments:

Melody Marie Murray said...

Aieeeee! I'm so sorry for your crashing bead soup. Maybe something wonderful will come from the rubble...

Carol Dean Sharpe said...

ouch :( been there, done that...

Sweet Freedom said...

Oh CD - I still feel like this ;( today because of this whole bead-spilling mess. It seems like the harder I go, the behinder I get.

But evidently some people have very similar OCD manifestations to me, because a surprising number of people have offered to come in to the shop next week and help sort out the mess - they all say the same thing: it calms them down to sort beads. I weirdly also get very a great deal of calming satisfaction from doing it.

But it still is a lot of time when I would rather be doing something else.

Anonymous said...

I just hate when this happens and I'm so sorry! Loved the sun catchers in your window, so beautiful watching color capture light!

Sweet Freedom said...

Love my suncatchers, too, Sharon!

And I still haven't sorted the beads - more pressing matters seem to keep popping up!

I haven't even visited my WiiFit since Sunday - and I bet I'm in for a chastising whenever I do get back to her.
That little Mii can be quite witchy!

Anonymous said...

Oh I know what you mean. The last time this happened to me I think it all sat it a container for months! Life gets so hectic sometimes doesn't it?! Ok, ALL the time! Hope you're enjoying the weekend though.♥

Sweet Freedom said...

Thanks, Sharon - You, too!

It is beautiful and sunny here, but awfully windy, which makes it a little nippy outside.

Bailey wants to play outside, but I have an overwhelming amount of housework to do, so he and I will have to reach a compromise!