This week: Perler Beads

You know how sometimes, you don't get into certain crafts because of a perceived stereotype? For example: knitting is for old ladies, why would anyone learn that? Cross stitch, how is that useful? Perler beads - aren't those kids crafts?

I have fond memories of doing perler bead crafts as a young kid, and even though I'm sure they weren't anything to write home about - probably flowers, random colored circles, who knows what else - I love the idea of them. But every time I would pass them in a craft store, I'd stare at them longingly and ultimately pass them up. Surely I'm too old for them, I'd think. I was positive I would be judged harshly for playing with little pieces of garishly colored plastic. (And I still might be, I *am* putting this on the internet afterall.)

My birthday is in early January, and my incredible supportive husband gifted me a giant 22k piece container of perler beads. Now, I'm not constantly pining after them - but I have mentioned it a few times, on the occasion that it comes up naturally in conversation. You can imagine how often that is. (Spoiler: Not that often.) I love them.

It's so exciting to start a new project, and these have just the right amount of meticulousness required for me to thoroughly enjoy the activity.

So - what's the first thing I make? Uh... refrigerator magnets, of course. What else?

I'm going to link the pictures I used to recreate the magnets I made at the bottom - I did not come up with these designs myself. I'm a copycat.

I am an avid Sailor Moon fan - admittedly not as rabid as some people. I'm not number one. Probably more in the thousands if we're ranking them, but who's ranking them? Regardless, I made myself a Sailor Moon figure. And then decided I would make one for each of my roommates that represents their interests.

My husband and I are big H. P. Lovecraft fans, so of course I made him a Cthulhu.

Another roommate is a big Harry Potter fan, and requested Hermione Granger. I looked through several iterations on Google and Pinterest before deciding upon this one:

During this process, I (re?)learned quite a few things about perler beads.

1: It's way too satisfying to sort them.

2: I'm so lucky I have long nails, to be able to place these with precision.

3: Not all advice on the internet will work.

3a: Iron from the top down first, in the middle, and make sure to get all of the outside edges while still doing the press straight down method. *Then* do the circles with the iron. Personally, doing this any other way resulted in sideways perlers and edges that jumped ship.

4: Perler patterns would also work great for cross stitch patterns and graphghan patterns, and vice versa.

5: Some people are intense and have way too much time on their hands. (I'm looking at you, lion head the size of a dining room table.)

6: I may have a 30 color container of beads, but it's still not enough colors for some of the things I tried to do. (eg. Needed one more green for a proper Cthulhu, needed two different greys for Hermione's body.) I *guess* I'll just have to buy more perler beads...

You might be thinking, wait, don't you have four people in your household? Or you might not - because how would you know that, you stalker. Yes, I do have one more magnet to make, and by request it's going to be a bloody Jesus on a crucifix, because troll. I just haven't started it yet because

7: These take way more time than you think they will.

So basically what I'm getting at here, is that when you're making things anything goes. I had and am still having a metric tonne of fun with these. There is no reason to wait to do what will make you happy. And, if it turns out that what you wanted to try just really isn't your thing, that's great! Now you know, and now you can have that weight lifted out of the back of your mind.

As promised, here are the images I was working with:

Sailor Moon: https://aenea-jones.deviantart.com/art/Little-Inner-Senshi-486537248

Cthulhu: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/19/6c/d7196c5d52cda29f3139badee69d4a77.jpg

Hermione: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9c/d6/21/9cd621b3105b9ca72c4d957ec9c3297e.jpg

Thanks for reading!

#perlerbeads #perler #beads