The drama of it all

A few days ago K was having a sleepover at a friends house. She called home that evening all distraught and fretting over a huge disaster that had just happened. WHAT?, WHAT?, I say, after listening to her voice and hearing all the sadness and concern hovering there. (In the back of my mind I am listing off all the terrible things that must have happened) She says, I brought my beads over here to M's house and on the way something terrible happened. The container got turned on its side and ALL my seed beads spilled ALL over. (Oh for cryin out loud)(I say this in my head) Oh, okay, well have you tried picking them up perhaps? Well, they didnt actually spill on the floor. They all just spilled into each other in the container and now the colors are all mixed up and its going to be impossible to sort them all out and its just awful, mom. Okay, well, it sounds like you have a couple options. Sort them out. Or not. Everything will be fine. Just find something else to do for now and we will figure it all out when you get home.

Fast forward to yesterday. We finally had time to assess the situation and this is what we found. Every single color has now merged with another becoming what they sell as rainbow mix.


This is the size of a single seed bead.

This is the size of many seed beads.


This is going to call for some serious specialty tools.

The spoon allows us to remove the beads from the little cubbies.


The card? Yeah, I had to ask, too. S said, well, I was thinking I could use it like you see the pharmacists counting out the pills.....So, what begins as a pile then gets moved around with the card in hopes of some actual sorting going on.

There was A LOT of discussion on how this was all going to work out. Would it work out? What would be the best way? Was there a BEST way?


And of course, strict supervision is required.


And everyone knows that supervisors require snacks.


And when the supervising is over, well, then he needs busy work. Or we would have have had an even larger seed bead mess. So, what began as this.


Got turned into this.


He really made quick work of that entire bag.


After what felt like many hours of sorting and led to several original cases of "a pain in the neck":


We salvaged what we could and they went into this new container that has separate locking cubbies. So as to avoid another seed bead disaster.


And then, we threw in the towel and declared these unsorted beads, the recyclers. The dreaded, dig thru the tub looking for a few spares....

But, shhhhhhhh. Dont tell K. They had all these for 50% off at the craft store.


I think it should be more than enough to get her going again. They will wait for her here, on the counter, until she arrives home from school.