Reddit reviews Perler Black Beads for Kids Crafts, 1000 pcs

Hey! I'm by no means an expert in this, but I figured I could at least try to answer.

First off- Welcome! It's super awesome that you're so interested in bead spriting. Now, onto the answers!

• Fuse, hama, and perler beads are all technically different things!
  
  • Fuse beads - Refers to any/all types of beads used for bead spriting. Sort of like how Crayola and Roseart both make crayons, "fuse" is the type of product all bead-based companies produced. They're beads that are FUSED together through, generally, ironing.
    
  • Perler beads, as far as I can tell, are sort of the U.S standard for fuse beads. They're also the only kind I'm familiar with! "Perler" refers to the brand. Their website is here!
    
  • Hama beads, as far as I can tell, are the U.K standard for fuse beads. They're more or less the same (with slight variation in color, and though I've never used Hama, i'd imagine there's a different melting rate) as perler beads. "Hama", like "Perler", refers to the brand. You can view their website here!
    
    • I'm unfamiliar with the quality of Perler vs Hama. I'd order more based on what's convenient for your location- as a beginner, I can't imagine you're dead-set on figuring out the hyperspecifics of qualities!
      
• If I were you, I'd buy supplies separately. I purchase a lot of my stuff from Joanne in-person, but I'd imagine similar products are available online. My purchasing habits sort of go as follows...
  
  • If I know I need a specific color, I buy a bag of that specific color. For instance, I use black beads a lot for outlining, so I always try to have lots of them on-hand.
    
  • You can't do beading without a pegboard! Because I tend to only do sprite patterns, I don't need any specific shape of board. Perler makes a lot of boards in certain shapes- things like horses or dolls- for kids. These are awesome options to look into, but personally, I use a big, clear, rectangular board.
    
  • You also can't iron your designs (or, at least, shouldn't) without some sort of protection. You can get a roll of ironing paper, though I know there's some alternative ironing methods on this sub.
    
  • This might not be the best tip, but it's how I do/did it. If you're looking for a variety of colors and don't mind sorting, you can buy bulk buckets of various colors of beads. Buckets like this have a wide variety of colors, but you won't get quite as many of any one color, and you have to sort. It's a trade-off; you can get a few of a wide variety, or a lot of one color in bags.
    
  • You might want to consider a case if you're planning on organizing your beads.
    
• There's DEFINITELY better advice than this, but if you want it to have a more melty look, more heat is gonna get that. I'd go for lower heat for longer, rather than ramping up the heat for the same amount of time. Too much heat in any case can be damaging; it can warp the board or you can end up with wrinkles in your design.
  
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  hope this helps!

Alright, so to make these you need

• Beads, of course.
  
  I use Hama Beads, they're from Denmark and generally harder to find in the US, but the "standard" ones are Perler Beads. They're a bit smaller than Hama's. I haven't used these but the reviews are good, so you can use them too :D Hama has a bit more colors, but that shouldn't be a problem.
  
  
• Pegboards. ^^kek
  
  These are the plates where you put your beads on to create a nice piece. A normal Pegboard is 29x29, so it can fit 841 beads on it. You can stick the plates together for making a larger piece (i.E. for the Ephixa one I used 3x3 plates, so I had a field of 87x87). These are for Perler and these for Hama.
  
  
• Parchment paper
  
  
• a clothing iron
  
  
  If you have all of that, you
  
  

1. Look for something you wanna create/remake, there a plenty of pictures if you search for "xxx perler bead" on google, or you can look at /r/beadsprites for ideas. If there aren't any available you can convert a photo into a pixelated pattern with some websites or programs, I use this one.
   
   
   
2. Create the image by placing the beads on the boards by hand.
   
   
3. The usual method is to now put the parchment paper on the board and iron it, but this has many disadvantages with larger pieces, so I use this method. It's a lot more convenient and it protects your pegboards.
   
   
4. When you either have it on the pegboard or now on your tape you put parchment paper over it and start to iron it, simply go in circles and take a look after a few seconds, the duration depends on the size of the piece you made.
   
   
5. When you ironed it you put some heavy stuff, like books, on the piece to prevent it from wrapping when it cools down.
   
   Thats basically the progress, looks veeeery heavy but it's easy after you've made your first 1-2 pieces, so if you want to try it out the bitbird logo would be the perfect start, you only need 2 colors and 1 plate. I hope I didn't explain it bad, here are some useful links to help you :)
   
   

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  E: If there are any language mistakes I apologize, as I stated I'm from Germany and explaining stuff is kinda hard sometimes lmao

[IF I FITS I SITS] (http://imgur.com/8bBlszc) Spoons loves Amazon boxes!

[Item one: $4.00] (http://www.amazon.com/Perler-80-19018-Bead-Bag-Black/dp/B009XPQ00C/ref=sr_1_7?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1398615583&sr=1-7)
[Item two: $4.46] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B9I1RS/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1GRPFU49N3AAX&coliid=I3MHD9V08PY5S5)

Thanks for the contest!

Anniversary trip to Disney, color me jealous. I'm going to DL in October this year, I can't wait!

My favorite movie is Wall-E, though as a Disney addict it's hard for me to choose when there are so many. Lion King was probably my favorite as a kid, but there is something so charming about Wall-E. Plus it has M-O, whose one of my all time favorite Disney characters. (The Cheshire cat is my other favorite, I have a tattoo of him on my shoulder.)

2) Haunted Mansion Bust Ornament Set! I love all the Disney ornaments.

3) See ya real soon!

4) Black Perler Beads! I'm out of black, which severely limits what I can make.

5) I went to Disney World as a graduation gift from my parents, after high school. I partied hard the week before I went, between the school run Grad night party (which took place immediately after graduation) and friends various parties. I actually got home the night we were supposed to fly out three hours before we left for the airport for our seven am flight. Now we live in Oregon, I'm a ginger (I burn so easily its not even funny) we flew into Florida during record breaking temperatures (all time highs) and my parents are go-getters in Disney. Get up early, run hard during the day, go to bed late kinda people. It's a LOT of fun, but within two days I had succumbed to the wonderful combination of; heatstroke, jetlag, severe lack of sleep, and general exhaustion. I ended up crashing hard in this 50s themed restaurant (at least I think it was it was kid of a blur, but a kickass restaurant we went there later after I wasn't so sick) We were waiting for our name to be called to be seated, and the bartender noticed I was really out of it. He informed us we could eat at the bar and was really concerned about me. Gave me meds, and then talked about all these funny stories, everything from him moving to Florida and being startled by the spaceships to Disney stuff. I've met some wonderful CM's but this guy just went above and beyond. We were quoting things he said for months afterwords, it was so funny. I ended up getting really sick that night, sleeping late, and then was (thankfully) totally fine the rest of the trip, but it always stuck with me just how nice he was and how concerned he was. That's the kind of thing that makes Disney so magical to me. I always see someone do something extraordinary like that every time I visit one of the parks.