Looking for a fun stay-home activity for your kids? Try bead art, which is not only engaging but sparks creativity and instils patience in kids.
Anyone else who also love working with Hama/Perler/Pyssla beads? The girls have been busy painting, drawing and crafting this July holiday and bead art activity is one of the activities they always come back to every now and then. Hama, Perler and Pyssla are some of the common brands in the market.
Our girls had started on bead art three years ago when Big E was 7 and Little E was 5, and I can see the improvement in their artwork over the years. They used to reference bead art designs on the Internet (they still do at times) and would copy the designs bead by bead. It's a good way to start for beginners if they want to make a particular cartoon character e.g. you could search "Night Fury bead art" on the internet. Popular characters would usually have loads of images popping up.
These days, our girls create their own, like the two Plants vs Zombies winter melons you see here which they did up themselves by only referencing to their plushies.
When they are done with their designs, parents will need to help iron the beads (you'll need to place baking paper over the beads to iron them) đ. Do iron both sides on high heat to make sure the beads are well melted and attached to one another. It only takes a couple of minutes.
The following is done by Little E using three square boards, which is the biggest she has done without referencing online images. It looks a little crinkly because our boards don't fit perfectly such that I had to try to join them together myself by ironing the beads on each board separately and I over ironed them as I had a hard time getting the three separate pieces to join together.
So it's important to buy good quality boards. We had bought some poor quality ones where the protruding bits where you place the beads over had broken off or wouldn't fit the beads. Do read the reviews on the online platform before purchasing.
Lots of online platforms sell these beads and their accessories like boards of various shapes like circles which we used for the Pokeball below and handphone straps which you can attach to the bead art. We got ours from Qoo10 and have been returning to buy more beads đ. Just search bead art or the brands above.
We highly recommend this stay-home activity for kids - it sparks creativity and trains their patience. Younger ones might need a little help initially, though - at 5, Little E still needed some help copying designs from the net but at 7, Big E could do it independently. Here are a few of the designs they had done when they were younger.
If like us, you're still avoiding heading out due to the COVID-19 situation, this is one activity you could consider for the kids which will have them sitting quietly while working on it đ. Just get ready to be doing lots of ironing! đ
Disclaimer: We paid for our materials, and my opinions and reviews here are strictly my and my familyâs own.
©Vivian Teo. All content and photos are copyrighted to Vivian Teo unless otherwise specified.