Product Review: Perler Beads

I am always on the lookout for new and creative craft projects for my children. Recently on a trip to my local craft store we came across some Perler Beads craft sets. I had not seen these before but my children were really interested in trying them so we purchased a couple of the starter sets. The basic Perler Beads sets come with one or two colors of beads and some basic shape boards to follow.

Perler Beads are small plastic beads that are put onto pegs on a shape board to create a variety of designs. After the design is completed, an iron is used to fuse the beads together and then the design is removed from the shape board. It was a really simple process to create the designs and all my children were able to do a basic design fairly easily by just following the shape of the boards. Since my children are still quite young, I did the ironing part. They were all very happy with their creations.

Here are some of the benefits that I found to using Perler Beads:

1. Perler Beads are not too expensive.

We found the Perler Beads sets that we purchased at our local JoAnn craft store. They were in the section with the children's arts and crafts supplies. Each set was under $10 and contained enough beads for quite a few projects. The sets we bought contained 4 basic shape forms - a triangle, star, heart, and a square. The more elaborate sets had shapes for a variety of vehicles and animals.

2. Perler Beads come in a variety of projects so it makes them appropriate for a large age range.

The sets each came with a colorful page that contained different craft ideas. The kids could look at a color picture of what they wanted to create and then copy it to make their own Perler Beads creation. It was simple enough that my 4 year old could participate with some of the simpler designs while my older children could complete more advanced projects.

3. Perler Beads allow children to express their creativity and get a feeling of accomplishment.

I was really surprised at the different designs that my children created. Initially they just wanted to copy the patterns but eventually they all started coming up with their own designs. They were really excited about their creations.