Welcome to the Beading Beat! Every Friday (except for Tutorial Friday's) I'll discuss various beady topics like tips and tricks, some of my favorite beading products, and more. Some weeks it will be a quick discussion, some weeks it will be longer. But every week it will be fun and full of beady goodness.

This article includes affiliate links. That just means that I get a little fee if you click on the link or purchase something and no additional cost to you. That little fee helps me keep writing these articles. All my opinions are my own. I am featuring these products because I love them.

This week I'm going to feature one of my favorite products that I use on a daily basis when I bead. My favorite beading surface. My lap desk.

I like to bead all over the place. I bead in the living room. I bead on our back porch. I bead outside. I bead wherever my little heart desires. And to do that I need a surface that I can move around. Something that will hold everything I need and move with me.

I have used a few different lap desks and my favorite one is from Ikea. I bought this desk from my husband so he could work in the living room. Buuuuuuut, I decided I liked it much more than him and I knew I would put it to better use then him.

So, what makes this my favorite lap desk?

I love the fact that the legs are adjustable. You can put them up or down. Using it with the legs up makes it possible to use it in bed or outside. It puts my beads at a height that puts less stress on my neck and makes beading easier. But sometimes I don't need that height, so I can fold the legs down and just use it on my lap. I love that I have the options.

And having adjustable legs, means you can fold it up and store it away easily. I've had other lap desks that don't fold up and now you have to store a huge lap desk somewhere. So it folding up is nice.

Next, I love the lip that goes around the whole thing. It is nice and deep, so nothing is going to fall off the sides. Everything stays safely on the tray.

I also love the little area on the top that you can put your phone or a tablet. You can watch a show while beading outside or keep your phone at arms reach. I've been using my tablet when keeping track of my patterns, so I can pop it in there and have my patterns right where I am looking (I will have a future post about switching from paper to my tablet, so stay tuned for that).

I also like that it's sturdy enough that I can clip my magnifying lamp on it and not have to worry about it tipping over or even breaking the tray itself.

Now like everything, this tray isn't perfect. It does have a few things that could be improved.

The legs are adjustable, but only two heights. It would be nice if you could adjust them to a few different heights. The legs are also a little tricky to get in and out. They also will come out of the tracks if you are not careful. I had a lot of problems getting them in and out when I first got it. I have since gotten really good at it, but there is a learning curve to the legs.

The tray is also very deep. It works great from my beads, but I can see this being really annoying if you try to use it for a computer. The sides will get in the way of doing anything. Now I only use this tray for beading, but if you are looking for a tray to do multiple things, this one might not be for you.

So it's not perfect, but it's one of the best I've found. What is your favorite surface to bead on? Leave a comment below and let me know what you use.

Other Helpful Goodies

​Want to know how I keep track of where I am in a pattern? Click here to read about my method for staying on track.

Find out what kind of bead boards I use. Click here and here to read about my favorites.

What are my favorite beads to use for peyote? I love me some Delica cylinder beads. There are a number of awesome choices HERE.

Beady Tutorials

Even Count Flat Peyote Stitch - Click Here
Ladder Stitch - Click Here
Brick Stitch - Click Here
How to Read A Peyote Word Chart - Click Here
How to Read a Peyote Graph - Click Here

Want to get beady updates sent right to your inbox? Maybe you'd be interested in a 25% off coupon? Sign up for my email newsletter today and get all that and more! ​

Welcome to the Beading Beat! Every Friday (except for Tutorial Friday's) I'll discuss various beady topics like tips and tricks, some of my favorite beading products, and more. Some weeks it will be a quick discussion, some weeks it will be longer. But every week it will be fun and full of beady goodness.

This article includes affiliate links. That just means that I get a little fee if you click on the link or purchase something and no additional cost to you. That little fee helps me keep writing these articles. All my opinions are my own. I am featuring these products because I love them.

This week we're going to talk about a hot topic. What do I do with my thread when I get to the end? Should I knot it? Should I weave it in? Should I do something else? What do I dooooooo?

When I first started beading, I hated ending/starting thread. I just wanted to accomplish the whole project with one thread and be done with it. I would either stick to small projects that I knew would only take a small amount of thread or I would just an indecent amount of thread. And that thread would always get tangled or break or both. And I would loose my mind.

I quickly learned I was going to have to get over my fear of ending/starting thread. 

So I started with knots. And boy would I knot a lot.

I have the fear (I fell like a lot of beaders feel this way) that my beadwork will fall apart. I needed to bead as many times as I could. Maybe 5+ times. That would keep everything in order.

My first knots were always on the edge of the beadwork. You could see them and it was knot pretty (hehe, word pun). Then I started knotting in the beadwork and trying to hide the knot. This worked sometimes, and sometimes it didn't.

So I went on a quest to find a better way. How could I finish my thread off without knotting it or at least learn to do it in a better way? I asked friends that beaded and researched on the internet and I found an amazing thing.

That's when I learned about weaving the ends in. Seriously, I had no idea you could just weave the end in to secure it. Where was this my whole life? How did I not know this earlier?

It's great. Weaving the ends in strengthens the piece. Unlike knotting, which can possibly weaken the thread at the knot point. And it's way less of a headache then knotting. It is my preferred way to end a piece.

So how do we do it? How does this magical weaving work?

So this is how you are "supposed" to do it. Make a figure 8 with your thread. I was always told that you should start in the middle of a row to hide the threads better. Buuuuut to be honest, I almost always end/start at the end. I just weave my thread in a little farther and then do all the fun turns.

And to be honest, mine looks a little bit more like this.......

Okay, maybe it's not quite that much, but I do a few extra turns just to make sure me thread is secure. Because like I said earlier, I have a fear my beadwork will fall apart.

Welcome to the first ever Beading Beat. Every Friday I'll discuss various beady topics like tips and tricks, some of my favorite beading products, and more. Some weeks it will be a quick discussion, some weeks it will be longer. But every week it will be fun and full of beady goodness.

This article includes affiliate links. That just means that I get a little fee if you click on the link or purchase something and no additional cost to you. That little fee helps me keep writing these articles. All my opinions are my own. I am featuring these products because I love them.

This week I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite things. An item that has truly changed my life when it comes to bead work. What am I talking about?

My magnification lamp.

I have been beading for well over 20 years and it's only been the last year or so that I started using one of these. If you use one already, I'm sure your shaking your head in disappointment. I own a wide variety of beading lights, but I've never actually used a magnifying lamp.

This thing has changed my life. It makes beading so much easier. I love it and I can't imagine beading without it now.

To be honest I bought it to help my husband sort Lego bricks. He buys big lots of used Lego and then we need to figure out what they are. So I need a bright light and a magnifying glass to do that. But after I got it, I thought, why not use this bad boy for beads.

I did have a little bit of learning curve to get use to beading with it. I wasn't use to see my beads to big, but I think I had it down the first time I used it. It took me maybe 30 minute to get use to it. Now I can't imagine trying to look at those tiny beads without it.

I have the TomShine Magnifying Glass Lamp. I got it from Amazon an I think it was under $30. On of my favorite things about it is that it plugs in using a USB cord, so I can plug it into the wall or I can use these battery packs to power it. Having it run on batteries is great because I can use it anywhere. And the battery packs are inexpensive and can be recharged (no wasteful batteries). I think I got both of these at Target for around $10 (the one can also be charged using solar energy).

My only complaints with this exact model is the lid won't stay open when you are using it. It just falls down. I've gotten around this by just taking the cover off when in use and putting it back on when I'm done. The other annoying thing is it did not come in with the USB power adapter, but not much comes with one now a days, so I guess I should have expected that. The only other thing I can see being a problem is the clip on it is VERY strong. Which is good because you know it won't fall down, but it could be difficult for some to use it.

Other than those few things, I love it. I recommend anyone that does beadwork get some sort of magnifying lamp and reduce that strain on your eyes. And get your self one of these portable ones so you can take it with you where ever you go.

Do you use a magnifying lamp? Which one do you use? Do you like it? Leave a comment below and let me know what you use to bead.

Looking for beady tutorials?
​Even Count Flat Peyote Stitch - Click Here
Ladder Stitch - Click Here
Brick Stitch - Click Here
How to Read a Peyote Stitch Word Chart - Click Here
Square Stitch - Coming Soon
Two Drop Even Count Flat Peyote Stitch - Coming Soon
Odd Count Flat Peyote Stitch - Coming Soon
And many more!

Other Helpful Goodies

​Want to know how I keep track of where I am in a pattern? Click here to read about my method for staying on track.

What are my favorite beads to use for peyote? I love me some Delica cylinder beads. There are a number of awesome choices HERE.

Want to get beady updates sent right to your inbox? Maybe you'd be interested in a 25% off coupon? Sign up for my email newsletter today and get all that and more! ​