How to - beading boards.

What to use as a beading work station?
I'm sure there are as many answers as beaders!

This nifty little ideas was posted in Bead and Button magazine.
It's a frisby! How clever.

frisbee bead dish

It's a lightweight, inexpensive beading surface by Shirley Dembo.

 Some people like trays with sections or indentations to keep the beads seperate.

Someone mentioned a fondue tray - personally I've never heard of such a thing, but you might find a dip tray or something similar.

fondue dish

 Another suggestion was the inexpensive plastic plates from IKEA.

You could line them with bead mat like the frisbee.

plastic plates from IKEA

 You just need to get flat bases as you don't want the beads rolling in to the outside or collecting in the centre.

If you need a bigger work space you could use a cookie tray or any tray actually.

Love these trays with compartments - must look out for some of these!

various trays from The Bead Diaries 

 I also love these colourful fabric trays.

They have a piece of bead mat in and the press stud corners let them fold flat when not in use.

fabric bead trays from Nimble Needle

I think these are meant for doing tapestry or needlepoint stuff, but they are just too pretty not to share.

For something off the shelf - how about this double bead tray from Bead Buddy?

Oh, I can imagine a whole stack of these!

bead buddy double bead tray

Available from Fire Mountain Gems.

I might dream about those.

My bead work spaces are not as sophisticated - 

These are the bead boards that I use.

This one sits on my desk for designing necklaces mainly.

It does have a plastic cover and a lid so I could take it travelling...but it usually have so many bits and pieces on it that it would be difficult to move!

 Instead I usually take a plastic shoe box and use the lid with a piece of mead mat in it as my work surface.
I use the plastic shoe boxes to store most of my bigger beads, and tubes of seed beads anyway.

I have a couple of these plastic trays, I think they are paint trays.
They did have a flimsy plastic lid but that has long since broken.
It is quite good for seed bead projects.

What do you use?

Have you any tips for making your own bead boards?
Or seen any great ideas?