Swap Project - Perlers

This month, I chose perler beads for the January Iggle Craft Challenge. This made me excited, because I hadn't played with perler beads since I was a youngin'. This past weekend, I ran out to buy some, and a pegboard.

I sat down the next day and got to making. The first thing I made, of course, was Jimbob, the official mascot of IGGPPC. Then I googled "Perler beads" and found some I liked.

There you can see starting at the top: a tiny giraffe, and Jimbob, then at the bottom there's Raphael, a mario coin and mushroom.

I enjoyed making them, and immediately wanted to make my swap partner some perler bead creations as well, although I did notice something.

You see, a couple years back, I researched perler beads. And most everyone said one thing: "Do not buy the large tub of assorted perler beads." But that bit of warning escaped my mind until I was fishing for more black beads for that coin...

Right. Don't buy that large tub of assorted colored beads. If you're starting out, buy a smaller tub, and then pick up some individual packets. I sorted through over 2/3 of that 11,000 bead tub, and was pretty disappointed in the amount of useful colors there were. Useful as in, basic colors. You know - red, blue, yellow, white, BLACK. I'm pretty sure I used over a third of the red in this tub for the mushroom and Raph above. And I ran out of black entirely before I could finish my swap project perlers. So, yeah.


Back to the swap project, my lovely gift recipient emailed me a list of her faves, and wrote "DC Comics" as one of them. Through a bit of stalking, I found an interview on her that asked "Who are some of your favorite DC Comic Book characters and why?" Lucky me!!

She answered Batman, Aquaman, and Harley Quinn. A quick google search on those three plus "perler" came up with a design I could work with!

I started with Aquaman, but noticed I was running out of black at that point, so I skipped the rest of the black and moved on to Batman. Another issue, the design I was referencing used dark gray, which was a color not included in the massive tub. So I opted for the dark blue instead.

This picture shows how far I got before I ran out of black completely. And I hadn't even started on Harley yet, which was a design that was primarily red and black.

Turns out my Hobby Lobby doesn't have individual packs of beads, but Michael's does, so I picked up two packs of black.


Another issue though... when I completed Batman with the dark blue, I noticed the dark blue and the black were very similar in some light, and I didn't want his eyes to disappear in the design.

So I switched his helmet, briefs, and boot color to a lighter blue, and kept his cape that dark blue. I needed to make sure he looked alright that way though, so I asked a couple people on the twitters what they thought. I got mostly positive feedback, although one suggested I change the briefs and boot back to the dark blue.

I tried it that way, but in the end, I felt the dark blue should stay with just the cape.

Here they are all finished!! I believe I'll be attaching magnets to their backs so they can go up on a fridge or something.

Have you played with perler beads? What's your favorite thing to make? Or what would you like to make?