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Alternative Beading Surfaces

Sandra Paluzzi
The Bead Peddler®

This month's tip comes from Wanda Power of Sequim, Washington. Pamela is an artist who creates copper tubing based glass enamel beads. She writes:
Old foam-backed mouse pads, the bigger the better, make great work surfaces. The textured and soft side helps keep the beads from moving around much and/or bouncing to the floor. The pad provides a non-skid surface that keeps a piece from sliding around; they're firm enough that picking up beads with a needle isn't difficult; you can pin into the pads if you need to, and most are a dark color that makes it easy to see the beads. They don't take up much room and pack easily; I keep them in most of my work cases and on my work bench.

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Kerry of http://www.celtcraftjewelry.com uses plastic picnic plates to hold her seed beads. Her email instructs us that
"Small plastic picnic plates are wonderful for seed bead work. Pour a small amount of each color on the plate. Just tapping the edge of the bead with your needle is usually enough to make the bead just "jump" onto the needle. When you need to take it with you, put another plastic plate on top of it (so that they are nestled just like in the package, not like a clam shell) and secure with 2-3 rubber bands".

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Sherry Haas has found a way to recycle yogurt cups for beading. To quote her,
"I don't know if they are still available, but I use the tops from yogurt. The kind with the "crunchies" work the best. You can put a different color in each top (upside down like a bowl) and just keep adding layers. This works really well for me as I stack them up put them in a quart size ziplock bag and carry them to work or while I travel. A needle even sits down inside the larger ones".

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And Sharon Cross of Everett, Utah writes "I also use all the afore mentioned for working beads. I also go to an art supply store and buy the round trays that are used to put paint in. They have a large round hollow in the middle, and 9 or 10 little rounded holes around the edge. This is great when working with various beads you want to keep separate, or seed beads. "

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