Bead Storage Rack for the Craft Room

Most of my beads are in these round, stacking, screw-together containers. I love that I can see everything I've got at a glance. I can also sort beads by color families, making selection for jewelry making so much simpler. However, I don't want to store them three and four deep in a cupboard. Kind of defeats the purpose, you know?

When I saw this bead shelf on Pinterest, I knew what I wanted to build.

via Flicker by Shannon exousia.etsy

This was such a fast and easy build.  These shelves would be great for all kinds of storage. I'm thinking spices, jars of craft supplies, small office supplies...I could go on and on.

I had some aged boards, but not enough. Instead, I used scraps of new 1/2 x 4 boards and started playing around to get the look.  This old board is sort of what I was shooting for, but a little darker.
The old board is on the left; my trial is on the right.  They look really orange in this picture, but they aren't.

I would have started with stain, but I don't dare open anything flammable in the basement since we have a wood furnace down there. The fumes don't do me any good either! This girl wasn't going to be staining anything in below zero weather either, so going outside was out...pun intended.

So I did what I do best, started slopping a little of this and a little of that around.  This was a complete experiment, but I like the way it turned out.  These are the supplies I used.

I was thinking of using the whole tea, vinegar and steel wool technique, which I've done before, but that takes time to develop, and I wanted to do it now!  Unfortunately, patience is not my best quality. So I brewed a pot of coffee. Don't you brew coffee when you are impatient?

 I drank some, and the wood drank some...literally. I brushed the coffee on the raw wood. I'm not sure how much color the coffee added, but that's what I did.

Coffee

While it was wet I sprayed some walnut ink, brushing it out quickly, before it dried.  

Spray the walnut ink every 6 inches or so.

By the time I finished the last board, the first boards were dry enough for the next step. I slathered them with another coffee bath, then brushed on a small amount of antiquing glaze.  I used McCloskey's Aging Glaze in Ageratum (black).

I worked quickly to blend the glaze evenly.  Then let them dry. 

I did both sides of all these steps, on both sides of the boards at the same time...told you I was impatient.  But if I'd been patient and let one side dry first, I wouldn't have discovered this very cool effect. When I turned a board over to let the other side dry, I saw this:

And this:

After I shoved my heart back down my throat (thought I'd ruined the boards), I realized it sort of looked like worm tracks in old wood.  See the wavy pattern in the board...my technical term for them is squiggles.  I let the first board dry that way.  As I watched it, the squiggles relaxed and blended themselves in.  I took each of these pictures about a minute or two apart.

The following picture is how it looked when it was dry.  Pretty cool huh?

The board below has more pronounced squiggles.  Makes me want to giggle.

I found if I let the board dry longer before I turned it over, I got the above result.  It was still slightly damp, so I rubbed some of them and it blended the glaze a little better.  I didn't want all my boards this squiggled :)

Okay, I've squiggled enough.  Time to put the bead rack together.  Basically I just built a box with my short boards inside the long boards like so:

I used wood glue and my brad nailer to attach them together.  Once the box was built, I did a dry run with the shelves, and marked the location of each one.  Then I disassembled it and glued the end of a shelf, slipped it in, and nailed three times on each end.  Lather, rinse, repeat until all the shelves are attached.

The whole project from cutting to finish only took about an hour and a half.  

Here it is, half filled with beads.  I have a lot more beads to fill it.  In fact, I may have to build another one on the other side!

The rest of the craft room is coming along.  I still have a lot to do, but I've moved a lot of stuff in already.  It's just not ready to show yet.  I built a middle cabinet on my long wall of cabinets seen here.  I'm excited to show you that soon, when I get a few more things finished on it.  

If you missed it, I started a linky party on Wednesdays, called What We Accomplished Wednesdays.  It's brand new, and it's a little lonely.  I'd love for you to link up your latest project! Head here and join in!

I've linked to these great parties. Come join the fun!