HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

One day late but been pretty busy with the party we are organizing :) Read more here.

Long time ago I used to celebrate Valentine's Day with my boyfriend, dinner in a nice and fancy restaurant and then go home and spend romantic time together. Nowadays I think it's just another comercial day, to make us cosumists, spend money in gifts (that sometimes the other person doesn't need but you have to buy something) and dinners out. I respect people who celebrate it, but isn't Valentine's Day everyday? Just like Children's Day or Mother's Day? We should celebrate LIFE everyday with our family and friends, doesn't matter if there's a reason to celebrate or not.

Since we planned to have dinner at Su's house for the February 14th (we were 6, including singles hehe) I wanted to give her something related with the day, just for the fun. Also because... ok ok, I really missed to play with perler beads. I'm a kiddo :) This is not a usual craft in Portugal, first time I saw it was my penfriend Satu from Finland who sent to me a perler bead red heart shaped with a Birthday Card (Perhaps a Xmas card, can't remember). Then, when I lived in Maine for one year, I collected all colors and at least one whole afternoon (especially when snowing outside) per week I'd spend making all kinds of items with perler beads, such as small boxes, flowers to place in headbands or pins...

I'm not living in USA anymore and found this AWESOME plastic container of perler beads in IKEA for only 5€ with different colors. The quality is not so good and I miss pastel colors but at least it got the main colors and it's cheap... Takes forever to finish one of this containers. You can find them in kids section, calls Pyssla and also you can find the peg boards to work with: heart, circle... I also have dog, cat, butterfly shapes :)

Easy steps to use perler beads: create your design by placing beads one by one on a Perler peg board. I used this heart shape because of Valentine's Day and Lilac and White colors. Then preheat a dry household iron to the medium setting. When carrying the bead design to the iron, be careful not to tip or bump the beads from the peg board. Cover the beads with the ironing paper. Keeping the iron level, gently iron the beads in a circular motion for about 10 seconds. Once the design is cool, peel off the ironing paper. Lift your design from the peg board and flip the design over onto your ironing surface. Done!

I'm sorry for the fuzzy pictures but you can get the idea ;) hope I gave you some motivation to work with this fun beads. I love to play with them to work my creativity and concentration. Also I can medidate during the projects which make me more peaceful.

Did you ever tried to work with perler beads? Which Projects did you make?