With all the Valentine's Day things popping up on Pinterest, I was in a bit of a love heart mood. This shape, according to my son who is the authority on shapes now, is called a Heart Beat.

I never knew what the heck Hama beads {also know as Perler beads} were until December of 2009 when I entered into a Pin-Up competition {yeh I used to be cute!} and I met the very talented Fanny Barlow of Drop Dead, Gorgeous... Couture to Die For. I bought this cute little pixel bow hair clip from her, and I still have it to this day. I LOVED it. It was like a game, but real life! In my hair!


It took me a while to figure out what they were made from, and even longer to decide to buy all the stuff I needed and give it a go. Trust me, it's SO EASY. Much easier than I thought it would be!

Want to know how to make your own hama bead jewellery? It's not even restricted to jewellery. You can make them into anything. Coasters, wallart. Um. Anything!

I made this Peashooter magnet for my sister from the game Plants vs Zombies


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You're going to need:

Perler or Hama beads. Check eBay!
Peg board. Check eBay!
Baking Paper
Iron
Jewellery fittings or magnets or hairclips or whatever you're going to use your design for.


Choose a design. I just eyeballed the first heart I did, but if you're following a design start with the first few rows at a time. You can google search "pixel blah blah" whatever you feel like making and chances are there's something like that. Look at the pixels as if they are beads. Each bead equals one pixel on the design!


Set the beads down on the pegboard, slowly filling up your rows.



Easy! This is the heart so far!


Cover it in a sheet of baking paper


With a medium-hot iron, iron gently over the design for a few seconds. I do it for about 20 seconds slowly moving it over and over, you get the hang of how much it will need by peeling back the paper and seeing how much it's melted.


Voila. This is the heart all melted! Let it cool for a few minutes


Is there a Doctor in the house? {haw haw haw I'm not even a Doctor Who nerd}


Here's some other designs I did a little while ago:

Space Invaders


Mario mushroom!


Stormtrooper!


Attach a jump ring through the holes and add a chain for a rad necklace! {the bead I wanted to use had the hole melted over, so I just repierced it with a quick unpick}


Told you it was easy!