Perler Beads- Mario and Among Us

My 1st grade son has been really on a Perler bead kick lately. He made all of these designs this week. Here is a beginner’s guide to Perler (or fuse) beads. I thought this might be something my readers would be interested in learning about as a gift idea for a young child in their life.

My son looked at some examples on the internet for Mario designs and then made them by looking at the pictures.

These are from the Among Us game. (He doesn’t play Among Us yet as he is a bit too young, but his older sister does play the game and he knows the characters from her.) He uses these perler bead creations as toys and plays with them and makes up scenarios with them. He loves to combine the toys with Magnatiles and make buildings for the characters. We bought the Magnatiles for my daughter when she was 4 years old (she is now 11) and these are by far the most played with toy in our house. They get played with almost every day by my son. The 11 year old has outgrown them, but they are a perfect toy for early elementary. I also have a set in my classroom which kids love to play with (when Covid was not a thing.).

To make a design with Perler beads, simply place the beads on to the peg board. When you have made your design, place a piece of the waxy paper (that comes with the kits) on top of your beads. Use an iron to iron on top of the waxy paper until the beads melt enough to fuse together. Then take it off of the board, flip it over, put another piece of wax paper on and then iron the back side. There are more tips and project ideas at the Perler website.

If you want to make your own designs, a square pegboard would work best.

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