Beads ... Organized Beads!

Ever since we returned from California (Nov 8th) I've been sorting the new beads from my sweet daughter and getting them organized. I showed you some pictures of the work in progress in my last post. I am here to tell you today it is done!

A brief recap:
First the boxes from the mail with loose beads all over the place:

Then the picking up and throwing them all in a bag of bead soup:

Then the sorting...

Sorting...

Sorting...

After all this sorting, I had two distinct stashes.  The first sort got all the beads together with their twins (no mean feat and by far the most time consuming part of the project), and I then had to meld them with my existing stash which had gottten kinda sorta messy lately, too. So here's a photo of the melding in process:

And look at them now!

I can't tell you what a great feeling this is to look at them all organized and neat. It's really an embarrassment of riches -- so many beads so little to show for it. I am now going to start producing! I've been accused (somewhat justifiably) of liking the organization process better than the beading process. It's true that I can get lost in the process and I like that a lot. But now I'm itching to bead.

Beads -- Messiest Beads!!

Here's what we did this weekend. And by we, I mean my awesome husband who fully participated in the madness that is sorting out beads.
First the before picture:

Please notice that those little turquoise and maroon and purple beads are size 15s. Yeah, tiny!!

During:

Progress is very slow...

After (at the end of the day):

Do we know how to have fun or what???

Just so the fun never ends, here's the box these came out of. See how many are left to go through?  And... there are more boxes just waiting in the wings!  Big exciting things in the Anderson house! HA!

Beads Glorious Beads!

Oh, I am the luckiest beader ever.

We spent the past week in Anaheim and Los Angeles with our daughters, granddaughters and SIL. It was a great week (and I'm still totally exhausted).

Here is the soon-to-be 5 year old modelling the bracelet I made for her and the necklace we made together (got to get them started young).

 

And here's the 2 year old as a pirate for Halloween with her BFF, the ladybug.

These girls are amazing and beautiful and funny and charming and smart as can be! So much fun!!  They alone would make me the luckiest person ever but something really wonderful happened while we were there.

My daughter gave me her bead stash!!!  YES!  She was a beader in high school and on into early adulthood but later years have been too busy (and child-filled and cat-filled) to leave her any time to bead. Or maybe she just got tired of it. I'm not sure which but I'm so excited to show you my new stash additions.

I made some suggestions about taping the individual boxes of beads but was assured they were packed in tightly and off they went into the mail. They arrived yesterday with beads all over the place. Lots of them landed on the kitchen floor. Bead soup, thy name is MESS!!

But I will have a good time sorting through this mountain of beads -- 15 boxes and one plastic bag FULL of stuff!!  This is like Christmas only better!!!

Here's a look at what's completely disorganized inside these boxes.

And here are two boxes that actually managed to contain the beads in their rightful places:

I'm very grateful to Brooke for all this goodness. Someday she may want to bead again and I'll repay her in kind! 

Now back to bead sorting...