I Love Beads! Ask anyone I know and they will tell you that I'm addicted to them. Plus I am always working on 2 or 3 projects at the same time and never have enough room. So I figured it would be nice to have a mini bead board that I could close the lid on it and put it up or stack it by using an altoid can. Plus you can have two purposes out one piece by having a sort container on the other side or make another mini bead board with different shapes.

Supplies:
Cardboard - Small shipping box will work
Glue
Paper
Razor Blade Knife or Exacto Knife
Altoids Tin
Acrylic Paint
Pen
Ruler
Paint Brush or Q-tip for applying glue
Small container for glue

Step 1: Cut Your Cardboard Out

Measure Your Altoids Tin:
When I measured the inside of the atloid tin, it came to a little over 3.5" x 2-3/16". You want your bead board to be smaller than this. I did my pieces of cardboard so they were atleast an 1/8" smaller than the altoids tin so ending up with 2-1/16" x 3-7/16". (Keep in mind if you paper mache it will add to the size)

Cut Your Shape Out
Trace out your box shape out of the cardboard with a ruler and pen so that is no more than 2-1/16" x 3-7/16". Then use your razor blade knife and cut along the pen marks that you made.

Round the edges:
Use your scissors to round off the edges of the cardboard so that it will fit in the altoids tin.

Repeat.
You want to make a total of three cardboard pieces. That way one piece is the middle and the other two pieces can be used to make ridges.

Step 2: Cut Your Desired Shapes Out

First you want to decide what shape you want your bead board to be. Make your shape out of paper first to get it the right size (I did an oval). Then trace and cut cut the shape out of the cardboard. Make sure you save the very middle piece that you cut out of the cardboard.

Then for the 2nd piece, I decided just to cut out a box shape. I left a 1/4" around all of the sides. I'm always sorting too it seems like.

Step 3: Glue It Together

First you want to glue one side to the middle pieces (the piece that you didn't cut anything out of). Then Flip it over and glue the other side to the middle piece. If you have a center pieces (such as I did with the oval) make sure you glue that piece on so that you can keep your beads in place

Step 4: Paper Mache

Get your supplies ready for Paper Mache:
Put a small amount of glue in a container and add a little bit of water. You won't need to much glue for this! Tear your paper into long thing strips, which seemed to work best for me.

Paper Mache your Box.
I had to paper mache in two stages. Make sure you let it dry!

Step 5: Paint & Seal

Use acrylic spray paint to give the mini bead board some color. Paint one side and let dry and then do the same for the other side. I did grey so that it wouldn't interfere with the colors of the beads.

I sealed my mini bead board with glue to give it a little shine and seal the paint

Now your mini bead board is done and waiting for beads! Happy Beading!