Travels with Beads - Results of our Survey.

Whoa! Looks like LOTS of us travel with our beads, whether on full-blown vacations, summer at the cottage, or just around town to appointments – we’re a bunch of beading fools, taking our projects everywhere we go. So we asked you, "Do you travel with your beads? Do you have any tips for other beaders? What about requests?" Here are the results!

Fishermen beware – the beaders’ are coming for your tackle boxes! The consensus is, tackle boxes, small tool boxes, and followed by soft-sided coolers are THE way to carry supplies. Make-up cases and pencil cases for small projects rule, as does the ever popular ziplock baggie!

Baby wipe containers and pill bottles get a lot of use too. So does any number of small plastic compartmented boxes from the hardware store, so long as they have tight-fitting lids and dividers that go all the way to the top, so you can turn the box upside down and not have the beads mix! Adjustable dividers are favourite too, for those odd shaped things you need to carry.

Lapdesks are popular, which is a board or tray with a sandbag back to contour to your knees. And some of you travel with your portable Ott lights too!

Here’s some specific suggestions and general comments from our beaders.

• I use a small baby wipe container. I glued a magnet strip to the inside top to hold needles. I lined the bottom with vellum from an old blanket. I wrap my fireline around a piece of cardboard, tape it with the purple release tape used by painters. All beads I put in small plastic bags, and have a pair of tiny scissors (Cheap) that I got at Walmart that cut my fireline. I keep a project in there at all times. I put a rubber band around it, to insure it stays closed then if I have to go somewhere I toss it into my purse and go. I have made many projects waiting at doctors, dentists, etc.

• I take my beads with me when I go places. My kit comes in handy when the folks I stay with need a necklace fixed or re-strung.
  
  
• I take a portable lap desk. The bean-bag thingy on the bottom stabilizes the surface. I glue velux on the top with a fold over lip so nothing rolls off. Instant bead table. I even bead in the car!
  

• Yes, I have a small plastic box, with a velux pad that fits inside the top, so I always have kits or projects with me. If I am doing something with jumprings, I have a jump ring tool that will go on airplanes, or if it is a stringing project, I use fireline and pendant cutter, that also go through security at airports.

• I keep mine in a bag meant for toiletries that is the size of a book and folds out with lots of zippers to keep things in.

• I use a gardener's bag that has pockets on the outside. I can put my tools in the narrow pockets on the sides and my wire in the larger end pockets. I use a 9"x13" "brownie" pan lined with an old white flannel pillowcase to keep everything together while I am working on a project. I save the heavy and mesh zipper bags that come with things I purchase and use them to hold everything I need for a specific project.

• I like surgical clamps (has teeth, so you have to be careful of scratches) to secure ends.

• I use a lot of old pill bottles, both my parents keep their prescription bottles and the plastic is nice and clear and they come in all sizes to support different quantities.

• Old cassette travel case.

• I simply put the necessities in a ziploc bag. The best portable projects are those that require few materials and lots of time, such as beadweaving projects. When I don't have a lot of time, I bring a beading magazine or book instead.

• Many small, resealable containers inside one larger one - the lid doubles as a work surface.

• When I go away each year for 2 months, I pack up key supplies and beads in a Rubbermaid bin and send it ahead via Canada Post!!

• I take my beading anywhere and everywhere. I'll even sit and do it while in the waiting room for an appointment. I have a small beading bag that houses a ton of stuff, and is easily portable. But generally, if I'm working on a project, I'll compact further, by putting everything I need for it in one container. It makes it easy when they call your name to stuff it back in the bag.

• I have a great tote that opens like a binder and has several "pages" with zippered pockets in many sizes. The outside cover even has pockets to hold magazines, patterns, or books. Inside that: the springy bead stoppers are the best for partially completed projects and packages that won't pop open if they get dinged or bumped (like zippered bags) are a must. Oh and I double bag everything inside my tote, just in case! :)

• I purchased an awesome make up kit from Wal-Mart for approx. $10. It has so much space. I removed the bottles, etc in the outer compartment and use the elastics to hold tools.

• I use those screw-together stackable plastic "towers" that hold approx. 4oz of beads per section.

• The best portable organizer that I have found is a soft sided fishing tackle box with 5 divided stacking trays. It has a place for EVERYTHING that I need to complete a project.

• Love those little "curiously strong" mint tins.

• I keep Baskin Robbins sample spoons in my boxes to scoop beads.

• I pull out the drawers of a plastic cart that contain the items I want to work with. So I don't have to fill nor empty any travelling box or bag and they easily stack up in the trunk of the car.

• I carry a small makeup bag with me and in it I have a set of tools and what ever project I might be working on at that time. I take my work with me were ever I go because I cannot stop my beading obsession so I just learn to live with it and enjoy it.

• I like to use pencil boxes to carry my projects. Usually everything I need will fit in a box, even if I'm working on chain maille at the time of my trip. For trips over a weekend long, my first choice would be to visit a local bead shop and get something to remember the trip. If no beadshops are around then I will draw, color or find a stone to remind me.

• I take the basic tools, crimps, wire, and various catches or toggles. I may bring the supplies for an on-going project...but if I come across a bead store while travelling (usually to Huntsville) I'm ready for anything!!! You know...Cub's Scout motto: "always be prepared"!! I take one divider case and the mini zip-lock bead bags, then I'm ready for anything that can get my imagination running!! And it doesn't take much!!!

• I pack project-sized items in a makeup bag. I also bring an Ott Lamp and a lapboard.

• I recently bought a stringing board that closes up and has padding on both sides so you can leave the partly-strung piece lying there when you have to stop beading.

• New foldable rubber bead board!!

• Beads are packed first!

• I pack everything in a tote bag and hope it does not fall out. A wheel-able tote (like what is out there for scrapbooking) for beaders would be great.

• I have a wheeled tool box, it carries a tonne of stuff and has oodles of compartments. I got it at Canadian Tire. It’s made by Black and Decker – it has a collapsible handle so it’s easy to move!

• Yup! I travel for my company, so my beads are always with me. I've tried lots of different containers, but always come back to the classic Ziplock bag. I'm a beadweaver for the most part, so it's fairly simple.

• I normally buy beads on vacation, then bring them back home to work on them.

• I do take my beads with me on vacation - they deserve it as much as I do. I use makeup bags for my different projects. I also like to seek out local bead stores to ooh and aah over their lampwork.

• I go to the local hardware stores to buy my storage bins. If you go to the tool department, they have sectioned carriers with four bins to a carrying case and each bin has 8 to 28 sections, dependant to how many separators you choose to use. :-)

• I carry it all in my anti-tarnish boxes!! They are perfect for travel and working on the go.

• Wood serving tray with 1.5 in. sides and handles & bead mat to fit. Goes everywhere

• I always take my beading with me on vacation to the cottage. I just pack things up in a sports bag and off I go. The problem is that bag get heavier every year!!!

• I bought, at a second hand store, a carry bag that is like a brief case, but the material is soft and there is a huge pocket on each side that zips up, so its perfect. Lucky find!!!!

• Individual plastic bags, and store them in an old cookie tin. My work-in-progress supplies go into little pill keepers from the dollar store.

• I have a bag that holds a beading tray flat, and several plastic boxes for holding more beads, and they all fit into a Rubbermaid box. And the box fits behind the passenger seat on the floor.

• I use a system called Lock ups. They come in a variety of sizes. They stack easily up to four high. As each container has a separate lid that twists into the top of the next container so no spills.

• Of course my projects come w me where ever I roam - in my faux snake skin green make-up bag from Avon..

• I use the Mastercraft 24/36/48/64 drawers, that are made to put screws and nails etc.in, to keep my beads sorted and portable. I do carry my bead projects with me. I'd die without them.

• Even to the doctor’s office, where I have my supplies in small 'wipes' containers.

• I need a perfect portable beading table that fits over my lap! Like a breakfast-in-bed sort of thing, only designed for beading. And it needs a Scarecat attached (like a Scarecrow, only for feline bead-eating fiends.)

• I bead on my lunch breaks at work.

• I like to keep duplicates of tools, so some live in the travel kit, but that gets expensive, so I put a list of tools on the top of the tool box that I have to add, i.e. magnifiers. That way, I can check the list, grab the extras, and not get to where I’m going and discover I’m missing something crucial!

• I go to lots of classes and take my tools – I marked them all on the handles with nail polish so that I can get mine back easily!

• We have a bus and I usually take along this huge tool box; At home, my husband bought me one of those 6 ft tool boxes to hold all my supplies, it works great! If I am just going outside to bead, I use an egg carton, works perfectly and closes up when I need to jump up (bees, mosquitos, etc lol).

• I assemble all components for small projects in flattish food saver containers. They pack easily, all the stuff is in one place, and it's even reasonably tidy.

• I carry a lunch box with a project I am working on at the time and take it EVERYWHERE! I roll up the project in a piece of felt and it sticks to it.

• Rectangular tubes with flip-top stoppers, which all fit into great little clear boxes, so you can see all the different beads you've selected for the project. I can often also fit my tiny scissors and nymo or fireline in as well. Just to be sure, I put a couple of elastics around the whole assembly.

• I usually use little plastic trays/boxes (1.5" x 4") that my friend's father gets when he stays at hotels (he's a flight attendant) for pouring out a few beads to work with. These boxes have 3 sections in the bottom and a lid, so you can have 3-4 different types out at the same time without them rolling around, or mixing together.

• I wish there was a fold up work table that folded up to like the size of a briefcase and folded out to about the size of a tv tray that had legs that locked in place and raised edges to keep beads from rolling.

• How about a “telescoping” or folding bead box -- kind of like one of those big, honking metal tool boxes you can get, only not quite so heavy and not quite so tacky. Something in wood - not plastic (ewww, plastic...). With a nice metal and mother-of-pearl inlay. Okay, so a person can dream, can't they?!

• I really need an extra arm coming from the center of my chest to keep everything level while riding in car, train, plane etc.
  

Sorry - can't help you there - genetic re-engineering is really beyond our scope. ;-) However, we are on the lookout for the rollable rubber bead mats!

Hope you find some useful tips in here, and will be ready to "roll" with your beads soon!