The eternal sorting

Right now this is what my life looks like:

Desk.

Bins.

Yep. Bins. Bags. Beads. It's all about bins. And bags. And beads.

And bins and bags and beads.

For those of you who don't know, I sell beads at bead shows, with a large selection of beads that I sell for $1 per bag. Which means that I have to sort them, first into dollar increments, and then into bags. As you may have guessed, that's a lot of bags.

Fortunately, I like bagging beads. A lot. But when I have a show coming up, and I have 150 lbs of new beads, and I only have a day and a half to bag, it does tend to get a bit overwhelming. Usually I try to process all of each kind of bead, putting some in the overstock bins and some in the regular bins, but I just don't have enough time before I leave, so I'll have to try to bag at least a little of everything.I'm going to give it my best, though. I have such yummy new things and I want to share!

Bead Table Wednesday

Today is a super-busy day, full of eBay listings and preparing Etsy photos and experimenting with my new camera. I have a few minutes before I dive in, so what better way to spend it then to chronicle my ongoing jewelry desk saga?



This is an unusual desk picture, because this is something I do only once in a blue moon; it's sort-the-stash time.

You see, whenever I have a few leftover beads from a project, or something that's kind of unclassifiable, or beads I was intending on using in a project but just don't have the time, then it goes into a tray. When that tray overflows, I add another tray. When those trays are overflowing, sometimes I put all of it into a big bag just to get it off the desk.

Eventually, though, the bag reaches the breaking point, and I end up sorting. It's generally a much more difficult sorting project, because some of the stuff needs to be made into jewelry, or needs to be put back into my containers, and this means that I have to really concentrate and figure out how to resort this all logically. Which means that it often ends up...back in the bag. There are some beads that have been in the bag for three years.

The funny thing about this sorting project is that I only pull it out when a) I am desperately bored, or b) I am desperately needing to do something else. ha! Isn't that always the way?

First set of cabs in my eBay store!

I've finished the Giant Sorting Project!

I've listed the first set of cabs in my eBay store!

I'm so excited about this. By the time I'm finished, I will have doubled the number of items for sale in my eBay store.



Some of the cab sets are so pretty. I love the blue color of this set.

In preparation for this, I've revised all of my store categories. I used to list everything under Vintage Beads, but I realized that many customers aren't looking for cabs, so I've divided them into Beads, Cabs, Rhinestones, and Glass Gems. Hopefully that will make things easier.

The sorting continues unabated.

Wow, I can't believe how many new sets I'm going to be adding to my eBay store. It's pretty amazing.

Most will be familiar, as a lot of it is taken from existing lots and just restructured (for example, the amethyst assorted lots were broken down into each amethyst-colored glass gem), but there are some oddball cabs and fascinating little bits and bobs. It will be interesting to see if any cabochon fans like these new sets.

Minature pirate treasure sorting

I woke up at just after eight this morning, looked at the alarm clock, and fell back asleep.

When I woke again, just a few minutes later, my alarm clock was off. I blinked and then realized we'd lost our power. A bit of investigation revealed that the nearly everyone in the tiny town where I live had lost power, despite the beautiful, sunny, non-windy weather.

So I spent today without the hum of my computer. No Miami Vice episodes. No Tori Amos songs. Just me, sunlight, and my sorting project.

I worked on the glass gems today. I've sold most of the large glass gems at this point. (I put them out at shows and marked them as "Pirate Treasure," and sold lots of them to kids.)

Now I'm down to the tiny glass gems, which will have the most appeal to diminutive pirates, I suppose.



They look so pretty in the dish. I love the colors. I think that making them available by color and style both is going to be a good thing. I can't wait to list the new sets!

The endless sorting

One of the things I love about selling beads and cabs is the sorting.



I have spent whole days hunched over a table, happily sorting beads and cabs into piles while watching (or mostly, listening) to eighties shows on DVD. It's probably one of my favorite aspects of this business.

It always leads to questions of selection, however.

Let me explain. This is the last portion of a huge bin of mixed cabs, glass gems, rhinestones, and...er...beads-without-holes that I purchased a couple years ago.

At first, I simply bagged them randomly in large bags and tried selling them, with mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and the flatback cabs and sold those in assorted bags. That, too, had mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and flatback cabs by colors and sold those in assorted by color bags. They've now become steady, if not great, sellers in my eBay store.

Now I'm pondering breaking it down even further into foilback/transparent sets for the oval cabs, and perhaps by color for the rhinestones.

It's intriguing, because I don't use any of these items in my own jewelry, so having to try to guess what consumers will want--and how they will want to buy them--is a puzzle. Do they want matching sets, and if so, how many in each set? Will some people still want assorted lots?

I know from experience that people do like both. When I first started selling dollar bags of beads, I'd spend a lot of time picking through everything to make bags that contained only one kind of bead. Then one day I was rushed, so I threw together some mixed bags. At the next show, the mixed bags sold first, and so from then on I always made sure I had a few of those.

Anyway, the nice thing about today's sorting is that this is the last of these cabs and glass gems. Over the last two years I've gone through about eighty pounds of this by hand and pulled out all of the interesting funky stuff and put it aside for special lots.

My strategy for the next couple days is to separate by style and color, and then separate further into foilbacks and transparents, and see how they do. I think I'll keep the mixed lots, too. It'll be interesting to see if it makes any change in how they sell.