To be honest, I thought these Tri-Trays from Beadalon were silly when I first saw them. I mean, really, special little dishes to hold your beads? It sounded a little pretentious—like having a special dish that could only hold crème brûlée. (Not that I have anything against crème brûlée.) But now that I've used them for a year, I have to say that I don't know what I was doing before I had them. I love them! Here's what I like:
1. While I use them mainly for seed beads, I've found that they're also useful for tiny in-progress projects like a pair of earrings. They work well since I want to see how a bunch of beads look together before I assemble them.
2. These dishes are so small (each side is just over 3 inches) that I can fit one or two in a small Ziploc bag, along with my needles, thread, and seed bead tubes for an on-the-go beading kit.
3. They stack! I can fill them, stack them, and scoot them (carefully) around the table. They stack nicely when empty and don't take up much room in my storage area.
4. They're white. This might seem like a silly "feature" but imagine if they were red, for example. It'd be impossible to see the bead colors. (That said, speaking as a designer, I'd prefer it if the company logo were on the side rather than in the middle, so that I could see the bead colors without dark blue in the mix.)
5. And the big reason: they're triangular. Once you're finished with your project, you can tip the corner into a seed bead tube and clean up in 30 seconds. Trust me, for someone who used to dump her Delicas on the arm of the sofa to sort them and then pick them up one by one to put them away, this is a big step up.
FTC Disclaimer: I have no connection to Beadalon and received no money or products in conjunction with this blog post.