Tag Archives: budget

Perler delivery days are the best

box-of-beads bead-varietyGetting stuff in the mail is great. Getting a shipment of beads in the mail is awesome. Perler beads hold so much potential; they can become anything you want them to be. They can be made into a Dragon, a Grumpy cat, or Grandma.

I have another shipment coming in middle of next week. I’m actually gonna be getting some sparkles, some stripey, and some pearlescent beads as well as 15k more black beads, and my 4th 22k tub-o-assorted beads. I’m spending like, $75 a month on this hobby, but it is well worth it.

 

Put some weight on it!

Put some weight on it!Make sure to put something on the medium/heavy side on top of your perler immediately after fuse; if you don’t, the will warp at the edges, and you will have to heat it back up to get it to lay flat again. I’ve seen other people use heavier items like dictionaries, but I don’t see the benefit. I’ve had success with DVDs and smallish books.

If you can, take your creation off the pegboard before it’s cooled (don’t burn your fingers!) and lay it on a piece of parchment paper, give it a few passes with the iron to heat it up a little before putting another piece of parchment on top, and then applying the weight.

It doesn’t take much weight, all you really need is a couple of DVDs or books. 15-30 minutes should be fine to let it cool.

The sorting of the 22,000 is complete!

allsorted2allsorted3allsorted5allsorted4pastelsallsorted

 

Beads are all sorted. It took forever, but I have time during the day to get it all done. I love the color palettes that come out as colors are removed from the mix.

I tend to separate by taking out the darker colors first since they stand out the most.

This bucket of  22,000 beads took about 4 days to separate. I doubt many people do it this way, but the way I see it, you either separate as you build, or you do it beforehand. I like that you know how many of any particular color you have so you can plan projects accordingly.

My Iron

ironfromgoodwill

I got this bad boy from the Goodwill. It seems to work well enough.

I set mine right in the middle. At that setting, it seems to melt the beads at a good rate. I like that it is a smaller iron and not too heavy, but I have a feeling a heavier iron would do a better job. I plan to get a thermometer I can measure the temperature with so I can get an optimal setting.

Separating

trayswithbeads

 

A few unused ice cube trays worked great for the initial sort. Turns out it is also great so you can have your whole color palette with you as you build.

The 22,000 bead container has 30 different colors. This seems like a pretty good range to me. I can do a whole bunch of practice projects before I get the specialty colors I will need for the more complicated stuff I am planning.

Some of the colors are really close to eachother, though. It takes good lighting to separate some of the pinks, blues, and purples. I love that variety, though. I might get deeper white icecube trays next time I am at a Goodwill, though.