Beadin' Fun

We've had perler beads around forever! Feels like it anyway, as I am always finding a lone bead lost under the couch, stepping on one, or even, as some roll into the sliding door groove as we open and shut to let the dog out and the chickens peck what crumbs they can find in the groove, in the chicken droppings! They come and go, the girls get into a beading frenzy and it's several days of constant making things and me ironing endless little plastic pictures and then there are long stretches of nothing where the containers sit on top of the fridge, gathering dust.

Lately, interest has been high and the girls are finally starting to play around with their imaginations instead of strictly following the pictures on the containers. It used to be only hearts, stars, squares and whatever shapes the boards allowed them. I tried to show they could do pictures of their own, but they adamantly refused to stray from what the labels showed. Evelyn shows great promise with her color choices, but it was always the same shape, again and again.
They got a Disney set with clear boards you place over a picture and you place beads over it until you've finished, but some of those projects were pretty darn big-- they'd get halfway through before dumping all the beads off, giving up.

Yesterday, with a burst of enthusiasm and a promise of help from me, they completed some of the big Disney ones and then inspired by the feeling of accomplishment, they came up with many more all on their own!


Evelyn's finished Disney castle with a bridge that helps it to stand upright. A princess to go with it, made up by Evelyn.

Sylvia's BIG, BIG Disney princess that took a long, long time to finish. Too big really, there's not much you can do with such a big princess when all the other little toys are less than half her size. I caught Sylvia pretending she was a giant and smashing through the castle, stomping on all the other princesses. Guess that's about the only thing Big Princess is good for. (she's supposed to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but Sylvia changed the dress color from pink to blue)

The girls got little perler bead kits in their Easter baskets-- they were for $1 at Michael's. I picked ones with different board shapes that we didn't have and the owls were from one of the kits. The green owl came from the original beads and had enough to make two, which Evelyn made, then she made the pink girl owl from beads we had. So cute, I asked for one and I'm going to glue a magnet on it for the fridge. The other kits were bugs (caterpillar and butterfly) and a cat.

Evelyn wanted to make a prince for the princess to go with the castle, but when we made him, he was taller with his crown. Forgot a crown for the princess, so the crown-less princess got bumped down to princess assistant and a new princess was made, along with a little green chameleon.

The little green chameleon made Gretchen think of the iguana from Tangled and she asked me to make the tower, Rapunzel, Flynn and the iguana for her. Only fair, since I helped Sylvia and Evelyn with theirs. I totally winged it and it came out better than I imagined! I really like the tower and I made the center piece so it can stand upright, too. The girls are having lots of fun with this!

This morning, Sylvia begged for an Ariel mermaid one, so I came up with this and of course, the sisters each want one, but with a different color bikini top for Evelyn (pink), different color hair for Gretchen (yellow) and Flounder and Sebastian, too!

I'm so happy to see the girls are finally thinking out of the box and realizing they can make stuff up. Hopefully I'll see less hearts, stars and squares and more random items being made!