Baby Steps ...

Nothing can block your creative chi faster than a “cluster buster” … that is a big old huge mess that prevents you from doing your thing. My studio has been in that exact state for the last couple months as I have been creating inventory like a whirl wind maniac to produce enough jewelry to sell at a my local artisan market booth as well as my Etsy shop and a few local holiday bazaars. My studio seriously began to resemble a pile of half finished projects and materials used to create masterpieces scattered about and left to lie long after the projects were completed.

I have been given many titles to explain my creative dark-side cleaning habits. A few of the most popular are the Fluff and Stuff Queen because I have it down to an exact science how to make things “appear” clean on the surface and stuff the mess into corners and behind closed doors. I am also a professional “Pile-It” because I create piles of stuff. Strange as it may seem, I often know where within the pile an item may be – freakish memorization mixed with the clerical filing system of Oscar the Grouch. I have racked up quite a few “frequent flyer Pile-It miles” from random items being hurled across the room in moments of frustration. But my all time favorite is the Sweeper. A benign sounding name, this habit is the bane of my artistic existence.

I start with a clean slate, pile up the materials for one project that, when finished, will morph into another, and another, and another and another. Between each project morph I will hap hazardously “sweep” my arm across my workspace to clear materials that won’t be used on the project and push them to the outer fringe of my beading workspace. This goes on for several projects until I am left with a postage stamp sized workspace that doesn’t work

So, today I got up early and made my way to the studio with grand plans to create a lot of earrings. After hunting for 15 minutes to find a headpin I decided enough was enough. I decided to clean the mess.

On A Mission …

I think that most creative people will face this at some point in their creative career. If it happens to you, then you can truly sympathize with this plight. My momma always used to say “A place for everything and everything in its place” How true it is.

I think that my problem lies in that I keep bring beads and materials in, but don’t provide them with a good home. So today that is what I am doing. Giving them all a good home, out of the way, easy to see and no more piles! I want to kick this habit. I hope I can commit to these new resolutions. Have you recently overcome disorganization? What were your solutions? How do you organize and store your beads? Do you have pictures of your organization methods that you’d like to share?