In Praise of Perler Beads
Posted on: October 24, 2008
The Unhappy Bears series
When Kirby was cleaning her room at Sol’s in preparation for heading off to college, she unearthed a 10-year-old supply of fuse beads and bead boards. There are plastic pegboards in a variety of shapes; you put the colored beads on the pegs; and an adult puts non-stick paper over the beads and fuses them together with a hot iron.
Fig. 1
Squarez
If you’ve never tried this craft, I recommend it. It’s fairly mindless, it’s good for your manual dexterity, the limits of colors and peg arrangements are challenging, and there’s an element of risk to it—if your hand shakes or the cat head-butts you, the beads go flying off and you have to start over.
The Star of David series
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that during the period between the surgery to take a bone sample (“There is something obviously wrong”) and the diagnosis (“Lymphoma. We’re referring you to the Cancer Center”), I used up almost all the beads making little designs.
Heartz
It helped keep me sane. Here’s a gallery of some of my creations.
Circlez
2 Responses to "In Praise of Perler Beads"
October 26, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Penny,
This is incredible. To read your journey through this process and open it to us all is so powerful. I am so glad I ran into you at Weaver Street. YOur colorful creations of perler beads will help you heal. They are fabulous.
I send you love and light as you step into this process.
Much appreciation for sharing this.
Love, Kate
Penny's Blog 
October 26, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Ooh, we had these too. I really like the blue and black circle one. That symbol reminds me of something, but I can’t remember what. And the bears are wonderful. I’m so impressed by your attitude.