A few weeks ago one of my mama friends posted on her blog about Perler Fun Fusion beads. These loose beads can be arranged on a small peg board and then you use an iron to melt them, permanently fusing the beads together. A few days later, one of my favorite authors, Jane Brocket, fondly recalled the same beads in one of her blog posts, although in England they apparently call them Hama beads. So when Eli pounced on a Perler kit at the dollar store, I was eager to try them too.
Eli liked the Perler beads, but they were sometimes frustrating to him because they are so small. He often knocked the beads out of place by mistake. His fine motor skills are getting better all the time, but in the meantime I discovered Perler also offers Biggie Beads. As the name implies, they are melting beads of a larger size and work well for a three year-old's fingers. We used a Micheal's coupon to pick up a bucket of 1,200 beads for $6 and love them! We've melted some of them into ornaments but also discovered they are fun simply to play with -- making temporary patterns or pictures, counting and sorting, but also stringing (especially on pipe cleaners).
The peg board we purchased is clear, so we can place a paper pattern beneath it if we want to make a specific design. If you do a web search for "Biggie Bead patterns," there are many available for free. (Click HERE for an example.)
Most of the time Eli just wings it, creating colorful amoebas and ink blots. But we had fun making ornaments for Halloween too. There are lots of holiday-related patterns to be found.
I predict a lot of bead melting in our future!
Cool! We'll have to try it out. M and C are always begging for a new craft :)
Posted by: Molly | 08 November 2012 at 05:19 PM
Very timely, I saw these at IKEA but wasn't sure if it would be a hit or not. Will definitely give the biggie beads a try!
Posted by: becky | 08 November 2012 at 07:16 PM
Molly, we've been having a lot of fun with them. Bring out some pipe cleaners at the same time as that makes it fun to string and match colors. :o) Becky, I didn't know they had them at IKEA. Good to know!
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 08 November 2012 at 09:25 PM