Perler Shamrock Keychain
These little perler beads are a great way to keep kids busy for a good long time. This little shamrock keychain is just one little idea... turn them loose with the beads and the St. Patrick's theme and they can create all kinds of "Irish" crafts! This one was created by my 7 year old daughter.
What You'll Need:
- Green Perler Beads
- Perler Peg Board
- Perler Iron Sheet
- Iron and Ironing Board
- Jump Ring
- Keychain Ring
What to Do:
1. Working on a flat surface, create your shamrock design by placing beads one by one on a perler pegboard. For the shamrock in the picture, we used a plain hexagon shaped perler board.
This part is certainly open to interpretation. Your shamrock may take a slightly different shape.
2. Preheat a dry (no steam) household iron to the medium setting. Once you are satisfied with your design, move it to your ironing board. When carrying the bead design to the iron, be careful not to tip or bump the beads from the pegboard.
Cover the beads with the ironing paper. Keeping the iron level, gently iron the beads in a circular motion for about 30 seconds to fuse the beads together evenly.
NOTE: The ironing part should only be done by adults or kids that are old enough to handle an iron safely.
3. Once the design is cool, peel off the ironing paper. Lift your design from the pegboard and flip the design over onto your ironing surface. Cover it with the ironing paper and iron the other side to fuse it together evenly.
4. Once your shamrock design has been fused together, use a pair of pliers to open up a jump ring and poke is through the center of one of the beads in the stem of your shamrock. Close the jump ring around the bead and a keychain ring to complete the project.
Variations:
There are so many things that you can do with perler beads! You can make virtually any design you want with the plain peg boards, but the company also makes a large variety of specially shaped peg boards.
One of our favorite projects is to just turn the kids loose with a variety of beads and boards and let them create whatever they want. Even my two year old gets in on the creation. The kids create and I do the ironing... and they will literally spend hours working with these beads.
