Creating Pretty Pixelated Projects with Perler Beads

What are Perler Beads?

Perler Beads are plastic fusible beads. They’re made from a food-grade plastic called low-density polyethylene. They don’t contain harmful chemicals. The beads are arranged on pegboards to form patterns and then fused together with heat from a clothes iron. The beads are covered with an ironing paper that is sold from Perler or you can use parchment or wax paper as well.

Because Perler Beads layout on a pegboard bead by bead the end result looks like a pixelated illustration. This lends well to geek art and you can use Perler Beads to create lots of cool video-related images like the ones shown here.

Sources: Hungry Heart blog, Perler Creations Shop, Beloved Doll Designs

But, Perler Beads can also be made in a million other designs – in fact, it’s limitless. You can easily count out the pattern in an image you want to reproduce and create it on your pegboard – or just make it up yourself.

Here are a few summer-inspired projects we made up. Working with these beads would be a fun afternoon craft for a party or event. Just make sure there are adults available to iron them – the last step.

See more about how to work with Perler Beads on our blog post making Perler Bead Drink Covers >

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