Perler Beads

© shoutingforha

My son first discovered Perler Beads at our neighbor's house. I had never heard of them before. After nearly using his weight in beads next door, my son convinced me to buy some of our own.

Many of you may ask, "what exactly is a Perler Bead?" Simply, they are mini plastic cylinders (they come in almost any color you can imagine) that you can arrange into various shapes and configurations on little pegboards (available in dozens of shapes and sizes).

Once your design is finished, you cover the beads with a special tissue-like ironing paper. With the iron set on medium, the beads are ironed for about 10 seconds, flipped over, and ironed again, thus fusing your creation together permanently.

I have to admit that the beads are quite addicting. There is something rather therapeutic about arranging the beads one-by-one on the pegboard. We have made coasters, boxes, picture frames, animals, Christmas ornaments... the creative possibilities are endless.

The picture above is of my son's greatest Perler Bead creation. He decided to make a guitar rig for the little clay dog that a friend had made. If you look closely, you can see the dog singing into a microphone while playing a Gibson Flying V. The guitar is then plugged into a pedal board and Vox amp. You may also note that my son took the time to properly mic his amp for optimum sound. It is quite impressive.