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I work on a large sturdy table and keep small containers of items for personal use on this table. If you sell, such as I do in my eBay store, I keep my personal jewelry supplies away from the ones I purchased to sell. This is not only for tax purposes, but because I never want to send anything but brand new items to a purchaser.
Behind me (in this photo) are two large tables where I work on orders for customers and also bookcases behind and next to me hold my 100+ plastic boxes of Swarovski crystal beads and the other jewelry that I have for sale.
I have a work area for my personal items, this is the one in the photo above. I often will dumped a bunch of beads together like I have done with about 300 Swarovski beads, to see how the colors look with each other. In this photo I am working on three different jewelry projects. That day, when I finished working, everything went back into their sealed see-thru containers. I did not finished any of those jewelry pieces that day, they went into their own plastic bags to make sure they did not tanish.
You can see a steel reamer on the lower left side of the photo. I only used that on natural stone to enlarge a hole. I tried it once on a glass or crystal bead, the bead shattered cutting the tips of my fingers. I've had natural stone beads shattered when I have tried to enlarge a hole but the natural stone hasn't shattered yet into the razor sharp slivers like the crystal and glass beads did.
Suggestions that I have for your work area:
- Have a small container nearby that has a sealable lid. When I snip wire or create anything with a sharp edge I put it into that little container, not my regular floor tash can. This is because if you knock your trash can over, these small piece could fall out and go into the tender feet of yourself or others.
- I also keep any snipped off piece of chain or wire that is could be useful. More than once I have needed just two sets of slender chain for use as a part of a dangle earring. I just looked into my little container of left over pieces and I usually find what I need.
- Always keep your silver and gold objects in a sealed container unless you are immediately working with them. Even for my finished pieces they go right into a box for shipment or into a jewelry case. I have had only a few items tanished over the years and that was because I used to assume I would be right back when I left my craft table. I would show back up days later to find a nice silver earring chandelier had tanished.
- I like working on a large piece of soft thin foam. I went to a craft store, purchased a package of assorted (color) foam pads. In the photo I'm using a white one because I'm working with gold. If I'm working with clear crystals or silver I usually change over to a darker color foam pad.
- When I clean up, I put my tools back into their storage area. That way I can determine right away if one has gotten mislaid.
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