Playin' with Plastic!

I've been playing with a new material. This one is not, however, fiber-related. It is, alternatively, a child-related polymer product. Oh yes, I have discovered the joy of Perler Beads! If I'd had these as a kid, I would have never left the house. Seriously, since I opened the packages containing my new toy, I have spent many, many hours at my work table putting beads to boards. Totally addictive. Totally. In fact, I may have ordered 30,000 more beads yesterday in a fit of panic when I noticed that I am running low on certain colors. Uh, yeah, that's the way I roll.

Anyway, let me show you what I've been playing at.... 

I've been making fantastic plastic jewelry! So much fun! The pic above shows a few other non-plastic related jewelry items as well. What can I say, when I entered the jump ring stage of the program, I just started affixing them to a few of my extra findings too.

Now, back to the plastic! I made a bunch of pendants: chevrons; circles; squares and squiggly doohickeys.

The squares are so 80's. I love them!

Here's a closeup of the circles:

I love the way the beads transformed in to a swath of melted plastic. I really ironed the hell out of 'em though. I wanted to see how far I could take the melt. These circles are my most successful example of over-ironed Perlers.

I also made statement rings and earrings to match the square pendants...

And I generally played around with shapes and such. Experimentation is the spice of life!

The lightening boats are growing on me, as is the ship's wheel. I put pin backs on all of these with the assistance of my trusty tube of E6000 (best adhesive around for this type of job). In addition to the plastic gems, I also affixed a few bugs charms, tin hearts and one of my crocheted feathers to ribbon necklaces. Finally, I fixed the chain on my beloved cloud necklace (which broke on my last road trip between Christmas and New Year's). 

Lots fun products to show for my efforts! Woo Hoo!