The Filling of the Printer's Cabinet!

To re-cap, I got a printer's cabinet last spring from my neighbor. I cleaned it up then refinished the wood. In the process of cleaning, some of the drawers got splintery. So I lined those drawers with little pieces of paper. I'd say about 10 drawers needed the paper lining, so doing that probably took me a month to complete. And I've been working on filling it with beads since then (October).

If someone would have told me how many hours it was going to take to get my bead stash into the drawers, I would not have believed them. I already had much of my stash of beads loosely organized by color. The beads, either as a strand or in a small bag, or both, were in plastic bins labeled with the color family they belong to. So, the basic sorting of maybe 75% of my stash was already done! Easy, right?
Not so fast...
To put the beads into the drawers, you first have to get them out of the baggie or cut the strands. Some of the beads on the strands are next to impossible to get loose. They are knotted and run back through the end bead (sometimes twice)! I also had zip-lock baggies that were so thin (do they come in .25 mil? lol), it took all my eyesight and fingernails, and sometimes I resorted to scissors, to get them opened! Don't get me started about bags that are zipped AND stapled! It was challenging at times.

The compartments in some of the drawers are different sizes, so once you have the beads loose, you try to guess which compartment they'll best fit in. Of course, sometimes you don't guess correctly, and then you have to scoop the beads out of the compartment (with a spoon or your fingers), to put them in a more fitting sized compartment! ARGH!

Anyway, there are 25 drawers in the printer's cabinet, and I have filled all but 1-1/2 drawers. One of the drawers that I haven't filled had been painted inside with bright red paint by someone, so I thought it may be distracting to whatever I put in it. So, I'm thinking that one over a little before putting things in it.
I took a photo of every drawer, but 25 photos is too many, so I'll just show you a few!


These are Reds and Pinks!

Here we have Greens!

This drawer is Earthtones.

These are all Czech glass. Notice all the compartments are the same small size.


I have more photos, but it's just more of the same, only blues, purples, yellows, oranges, multi, etc.
You get the drift! If you comment you'd like more photos of the other drawers, I'll post them.

All in all, I'm very happy with it. It's been a labor of love!

Thanks for stopping by!