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Submitted by Jordan C
Perler Beads are great for introducing young ones to craft projects. Today’s parent might be hesitant because fusing them requires an iron, but our parents were always cool with it as long as there was a strict understanding that playing with hot irons was a bad idea and that stage should be handled by an older sibling or adult (even though this rule probably got us in trouble more than we’d like to admit).
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Man those were fun.
Also, thumbs up to the choice of characters
Funny! I’ve still got a bunch of those things — my kids made them for me.
Wow, I really want the Black Mage one. *Suddenly looking for Perler beads so I can make my own*
Wal-Mart!
michaels…gigantic buckets of them for 5 bucks or less…
id probably like them better if they didnt have a hole in the middle of them
A made a cat that’s long gone but I made a trivet out of the extra pices that we stil use today.
Win but I wouldn’t say epic….
This is a double win if I’ve ever seen one.
Oh man, I LOVED those things when I was a kid. Being reminded of their epic win-iness makes me want to go get a set now.
I remember making a star-shaped one in my high school colors with my graduation year in it (‘95) and thinking how far away it was. Now it was almost 15 years ago.
I never got to enjoy these when I was small, but my kids love to make things for me!
I work in child-care, and “my” kids love these! (okay, I’ll admit, whenever we get these out for the kids to use, I make them too) They give the kids such a chance to play with colour and design, and they’re so much fun!
I remember making a poke ball or something like that. ahhh the good years, where have they gone?
When I was playing around with those, I was too young. It never occurred to me to map pixels to beads and duplicate a favored sprite.
two years ago, i was 17 and we were in Chicago, and we got a big bucket of these for my nieces, who were 8 and 11 at the time.
yeah, they had fun, but i made a metroid, Samus’ helmet, and something else i can’t remember.
The things they had were small as heck, but you can still tell it’s a metroid. XD
love these things, and i want to get a really big base, so i can do MZM Samus.
I want the pattern!
Newest obsession is Metroid Prime: Trilogy.
Awesomeness.
I loved these when I was in elementary school, but we always referred to them as “Fuse beads”.
I don’t remember them being called this… and I only got to use my set once. My mom let the iron on to long and it melted the peg board! O0
I worked at an Arts & Craft store where I taught Summer Craft Camp. I think I might’ve enjoyed it way more than the kids.
Heck yes. These and Shrinky-Dinks.
My nan has loads of these, she never irons them for me. I’ll always come over to find that someone’s already started a new design on the base I was using! I also have some glo-in-the-dark ones… somewhere.
Never heard of these before, but I want the Mega Man one!
me too!
Most of mine were on the fridge, and they fell off and broke. I also discovered that they don’t take to re-ironing very well.
My kids love these things! Some company did try to introduce a version of these that you only sprayed with water and they fused, but as I recall, they turned out to be poisonous when swallowed (as small kids are likely to try). Much worse hazard than risking the iron burn!
Just goes to show you that sometimes “new” really isn’t “improved”…
My mom would never buy me these because she thought they would be too messy, with the hundreds of little pieces. But I played with them at my best friend’s house and they were awesome!
OMG!!! Those videogame-related ones are an epic WIN!!
I remember playing with them by the first time when I was 5. Now my niece plays with them and sells her art.
I am not going to lie: I bought a great deal of them today with some majorly grand plans.
So I got home, made a few designs & I went to iron them. Our iron is older than me & died today…of all days. The second I get a new iron though…there is no end in sight for the insanity.
i had completely forgot about these, but when i saw this epic win last night and realized i could make video game sprites with them. i went right out to hobby lobby and bought a ton of beads. i have already made mega man, quick man and raccoon mario.
I loved making rainbow ones and ’stained glass’ ones (impossible to find) and I chewed on mine. *giggle*
Totally hear you on the chewing. I might go get a small bag just to chew on them. So yummy!
Looks like the top picture with the Nintendo characters is from 8bit artist. He sells paintings and other creations that look like he took pixels from the computer screen to create. The dude is amazing.
I’ve never been to this site before, but thank you to whoever posted my video here! =]
How are these a blast from the past? Kids are still doing them today, in fact I only ever heard of them a couple months ago.
i still do those. they have large square peg boards that have hooks on them so you can pur a whole bunch together and make huge perler creations. my largest one so far required six boards.
on occasion we do these for vacation bible school, and every year (because the kids keep messing around) i usually end up getting burned by the iron.
Amazing!! I remember making keychains with Perler beads when I was seven…
Gaaaah! I must go buy some now and make some sprites.
I remember I used to make horses out of these, and my mom over-ironed the one side, so the one side was barely fused and the other side didn’t even have holes in it. o.O
We also used to call these ‘fuse beads’
YES, So much epic win here!
For some reason though, only my friend’s mom could make them just right. My mom always failed.
Oh my GOODNESS they have a name?!
I had so many of these and it took us YEARS to realize we could use the iron to make them stay together. I think my mom lost the instructions on purpose! I never did anything all that great with them except a pretty awesome dolphin design. I also hoarded all the purple ones because they were my favourite. I think we at some point managed to get sparkly and kinda metallic ones, too, those were awesome as well!
I used to chew the raw beads all the time, they were addictively hard but squishy. At least I wasn’t chewing my nails while I had the beads in my mouth.
My day care used to let us lose with these, I’m shocked none of the viscous little brats burned each other with the irons, especially with how lax our supervision was
Believe it or not, I’ve never heard of them before. After I read this post, though, I bought myself a few thousand. To make up for the non-stalgia I have with these things, I center around classic video game characters like the ones shown at the top of the post (*cough* whitestar245.etsy.com *cough*.)
I am SO going to Michael’s today. I wanna make Mega Man!