Favorite Tools: Here's the Scoop

I love my bead scoops.  There.  I said it.  I know a bead scoop doesn't seem like such a big deal, but if you love working with seed beads you know how useful these little helpers are.

My two favorites are the triangle scoop and the little shovel scoop.

Small shovel scoop and triangle scoop

If you're working with seed beads you probably have more than one color in a little pile on your bead mat. After a while those piles start to spread out.

Sure, you can use your fingers to re-group them.  But don't you always find one or two beads will stick to a finger and drop off into another color?  And when you try to get them out you make an even bigger mess and before you know it you're having rather unpleasant thoughts about these innocent little beads?

Bead scoops to the rescue!  They're just what you need to corral those miscreant critters.

Seed beads starting to spread out!

I probably use the triangle scoop most often for pouring seed beads back into their tubes.  The corner points are great at directing the beads into a small space, and it holds more than the shovel scoop.

The shovel scoop can also pour beads back into their container

Pouring beads back into their container

If I have beads in a smallish container that I can't just dump out (perhaps there are multiple bins and I don't want to dump it all), the shovel scoop usually works better fitting into the bin.

Once you have a bead scoop (or two) in your supply bin you can't imagine ever having worked without one. That's the scoop!

The little shovel scoop fits in small containers