On cold, blustery snowy days, it is nice to stay inside and do some Christmas crafts with the kids. Perler Beads are a great craft to do with kids age 4 and up (maybe a little bit younger if you help them). If you are not familiar with Perler Beads, they are those little plastic beads with the hole in the centre. You place them in fancy designs onto a pegboard and iron the designs. Remember those from your childhood? 

Perler Beads, also called Hama Beads, are available in a variety of kits from your local craft store or discount stores like Walmart or Target. A basic set will typically include a few different pegboards such as square, circle, hexagon and heart along with a mixed bag of beads. There are all sorts of festive kits available as well that will include shapes such as a tree, star, snowman and more. I own a set of large pegboards which are nice for making big designs. The starter kits are a great way to get started; if you find your kids really enjoy making Perler crafts then you may want to purchase beads in individual colours to help eliminate the need to sort a container of 1000 beads!

I have made a number of festive designs over the years including snowflakes, candy canes, snowmen and trees. The ideas for Christmas Perler Bead crafts are endless! Perler beads are also great for making geeky designs such as Super Mario and other old-school Nintendo designs. I decided to turn Mario into Santa! 

 These crafts can be turned into a number of useful items. I have made them into coasters, magnets, keychains and window hangers. They can also be embellished by glueing on little crystals – this looks especially beautiful on the snowflakes. To make window hangers, I like to string the snowflakes together in a vertical line using fishing line. 

Christmas Perler Bead Crafts

Items Required

• Perler Beads
• Pegboards
• Iron (adult use only!)
• Special paper for ironing beads – included with kits
• Magnets (can be purchased at dollar store)
• Fishing line or other clear string (to make window-hangers)
• Suction cups with hooks (to hang window-hangers)
• Small crystals (for embellishing crafts)
• Superglue (Adult use only! For attaching magnets & crystal embellishments)
• Felt (for making coasters)

 Instructions

Decide on your design and start laying out your beads on the pegboard! The possibilities are endless. In order to make some of the designs featured here, you will need to make use of different shapes of pegboards.

• Snowflake: Hexagon pegboard – although many other designs can be made on any pegboard
• Candy Cane: Heart pegboard
• Snowman: Round pegboard
• Mario/Goomba/Question Block/Coin: Square pegboard

Many other templates and ideas can be found at eksuccess brands, the maker of Perler beads. A simple Google Image search will also generate a template for just about anything your kids can come up with! Have you made Perler bead crafts with your kids? What fantastic designs did they come up with? Post a picture and mention us on Twitter or Facebook for us to see!