Welcome to my studio. As you may be able to tell, I am going through an orange phase, so what better color for the walls than shocking crayon orange? I've done a lot of work on my space, but I am still in need of better ventilation. It's halfway decent, but not good enough for fuming or enamels, so rest assured, I am not doing those things. My oxygen tanks have been traded out for a concentrator, a gift from my family (good prezzie!!!) Now they will only need to come out when I am playing with boro or making big things like wine stoppers. I am very proud of my stringing station and the organization of my beads and findings. I'll talk more about that when I get to those pics. 'Til then, enjoy peeking at my little sanctuary.

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This is my workspace. It's nighttime now, as it usually is when I am working, so you can't see that this window looks out onto our front yard. People walking their dogs sometimes point and talk to each other when they pass by. I wonder what they think I'm doing (or maybe they're just pointing at my ugly old-man safety glasses). I have actually had one solicitor try to solicit me through that window while I was working. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for me, I am basically nonverbal when making a bead, so I just grunted a couple of times and he went away.

This is my work surface. Cleaner than usual. I had a houseguest for a couple of nights (did I mention that this studio doubles as the guest room?), so I was inspired to clean up.

This picture features my very sleek and fabulous Ikea bracket-less shelves, my glass storage, my photography set-up, some bead porn, and a gorgeous mosaic of my tattoo that Jenea made for me. We call it bead porn because we put pictures of favorite beads on our walls and drool. Mechanics have half-naked women... beadmakers have beads. Brad Pearson's work is over-represented in my bead porn collection. I *love love love* his style.

A closeup of my glass rod storage and "lightbox". Neither is optimal. The glass storage would be better if it better protected the rods from dust and if I didn't have to carefully thread rods into it. People have done good things with cut-up lengths of PVC downspout. Someday, I will upgrade this. The lightbox is 2 halogen lamps over a rubbermaid storage bin with some gray paper. It works OK, but could be improved. That yellow-green glass poking up beside the lightbox is vaseline glass, and it glows under a blacklight.

Here is my (somewhat messy) stringing station. I think the pegboard is a totally genius solution. It is expandable, flexible, and just plain rocks.

Here is a close-up of the truly genius part of the pegboard solution... these little tic-tac style containers with adhesive plastic hangtags on them. Most of my beads are stored this way. This rocks because you can use long hooks and have many items deep on each hook, but can still get to the last item without taking everything off the hook. I label them with whatever I need--color, where I bought them, how much they were, etc. You're looking at my seed bead and Swarovski crystal stash, with some strands of ceramic pony beads and Czech fire polish beads in the background. I have a section for stone beads, Bali silver, and a section for findings--earwires, clasps, headpins, etc. I struggled for a long time with finding a storage solution that worked for me, and I think that, at least for now, I have found one!

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