Studio Saturday with Lori Anderson

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process, or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive, we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

This weeks winner is BeadRoe. Congratulations!

You have won a bag of goodies from Erin Prais-Hintz!

Send Erin an e-mail with your address and she will send you those treasures!

This has been a hectic week here in my studio!  I went to the Bead and Button Show (brought lots of goodies back in case you want to try for the Big Bead Giveaway!), met with my book editor, did a video interview for promotional purposes down the road, met a million wonderful people, and did a bit of damage to a credit card I'd just paid off.  But I was good, actually, compared to some years.

Needless to say, my beading table and lampwork studio are either piled up with clutter or getting dusty.  I'm behind.  Soooo behind.  I feel like the White Rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland" .... "Late, late, for a very important date!"

source

When I have so many things piled up and a ton of deadlines due, I tend to get, shall we say, frazzled.  The running-down-the-street-waving-my-hands-over-my-head-screaming type of frazzled.  So I've learned to set aside the deadlines, if only for an hour or two, and do something that gives my mind a break.

Two things sooth this savage beast, and one actually helps me get the pile on the workbench under control.

One:  I sort beads.

It's SO cathartic for me to pull out a box of beads and sort.  Beads in too large a baggie get poured into a smaller baggie.  Ahhhhh, there.  Nice and tidy.  Beads that are rolling all over the table, driving me (and the cats) mad, I scoop up and corral into their proper spaces.  My mind can just drift, and I actually feel like I'm accomplishing something without having to think and plan and design and create and, and ..... and.

my bead storage cabinet

Another thing I do when my brain is on overload and I need a mental break is make earrings.  I sell a ton of earrings at craft shows and always try to keep at least 200 or so pairs on hand, so days when I'm overwhelmed are deemed Earring Days.

This time of year, believe it or not, I start preparing for holiday earrings.  My show season starts in mid-October, and patrons expect to see those snowflakes, so out comes the ho-ho-ho and away I go!

beads by Moonraker Lampwerks

I think we all have days when we're just completely overwhelmed with Life.  Life has a way of sneaking up on us and yelling, "BOO!" in our ear just when we've thought things had settled down.  It's always good to have a backup plan, and these are just two of mine.  Depending upon the day, my backup plan could be a nap and a box of chocolates, but then, that would have been a short and boring blog post, now, wouldn't it?

So here's my question to you -- what is your favorite way to recharge your batteries when you're overwhelmed with being a jewelry designer?

 

Answer this question in a comment below, and a winner will be drawn at random next Saturday.  The winner will receive a nice healthy helping of my Bead Soup, styled to your favorite color palette.  Mmm, soup is good food!

Lori Anderson writes the blog Pretty Things and creates jewelry for her web site, Lori Anderson Designs.  She is also the creator of the Bead Soup Blog Party. 

Create a Wall of Beads Storage System

Really, do I need to say anything about how spectacular a wall of beads would be in my studio? I am in serious bead storage lust over Elisabeth Auld's wall o'beads. (Yes, it's the same busy gal from yesterday!)

With a little DIY elbow grease, sheet metal and some hardware she created a wall to store these magnetic containers filled with her treasures.  This would definitely help with the dilemma of no table space and not wanting to pack away beads in containers where their visual inspiration would be lost.  Nope, these are in your face begging to be played with!

On Elisabeth's blog she shares a detailed tutorial to create your own wall of beads.

Maybe you couldn't devote an entire wall to beads, but wouldn't a smaller version be perfect for displaying your art bead collection?

Elisabeth's Wall of Beads in action.

Storing Your Supplies Artistically with Lori Anderson

Part of getting ready for artistic ventures is the absolute joy of buying new supplies. Paints, pastels, vintage ephemera, yarn, tons of books, metal-working tools, glass, beads — it’s like Christmas every time the UPS man comes! But with all this largess comes the dilemma of where in the world do I STORE this stuff? Moving into a new house is just not an option, so what to do… what to do.

Something I’ve realized is all of these new supplies are really, really pretty. So I started thinking outside the (paint) box and came up with some new home decor.

I’ve started random collections throughout the house. Here, lovely jars from Pottery Barn full of yarn, waiting for a class in sock knitting….

The yarn was just too pretty to put away in a box, so for now, they’re filling up these jars.
Speaking of jars, I found a vintage fruit jar and I’m using it to hold a treasure-trove of glass rod ends that I was given by a lovely blog reader. I’m holding on to them for a bit, just waiting to mash them up and turn them into frit or pull into stringer for lampworking. In the meantime, they're pretty just as they are!

Some of my storage options are BIG, like this one -- an antique postal sorting unit. It's huge and I love it. The sorting bins slant slightly downwards, making them perfect for glass rod storage:

Storing your art supplies this way may not be practical. Don’t get me wrong — all of my stash is most certainly NOT on display. Most, in fact, is packed into boxes and unceremoniously shoved under beds or into closets. But considering the beauty we make WITH the tools of our trade, doesn’t it stand to reason that some of our tools and supplies would be beautiful, too?
So choose a few. Find an unusual way to make them an everyday part of your decor. Who knows? It might just be the gentle nudge you need to try that new project you’ve been meaning to start.

Lori Anderson’s is a full time jewelry designer in Easton, MD. Her jewelry can be seen at www.lorianderson.net. She also writes a blog called Pretty Things and An Artist's Year Off.