Christmas is the time for presents and MeinMMO community manager Irina Moritz loves to give away nerdy stuff that she makes herself from children’s toys.
Did you play with fuse beads when you were a child? Those brightly colored things that you can use to lay out various images such as little hearts, animals or flowers on special plates and then “melt them together” with a hot iron? Not me.
In the toy department at Müller, I used to be more interested in Lego and board games. I only discovered ironing beads for myself when I was well over 20. Back then, during a convention, I found a different kind of fuse bead creations at one of the artist stands.
It was cute characters from anime and video games that got me hooked right away and I decided I wanted to try something like that too. This has led to the fact that I have been giving my friends small and large Christmas gifts in the form of ironing bead pictures for years now.
If you search for “Ironing Beads” + game name on Google, you will find many pictures straight away.
Personal, homemade and just great
When I tried out the nerdy fuse bead pictures myself back then, I didn’t expect it to become a long-term hobby. At first it was a nice pastime where I could let off steam creatively.
When I showed my first creations to some friends at work and on social media, the first buyers were found surprisingly quickly. People got excited when they got their favorite starter Pokémon or a character from their favorite retro game as a gift.
It didn’t take long and I started getting requests to make one or the other sprite. I was happy that I could make my friends and acquaintances happy with very little effort.
You can easily tinker with the ironing bead pictures “on the side”, for example if you are watching a series. Small sprites take no longer than 20-30 minutes, larger ones usually take an hour or more, but they can also be completed in several sessions.
They make wonderful gifts for anime and gaming fans that can be used in many ways:
Video games are good templates because many sprites, especially from the NES and SNES times, can be easily converted into iron-on bead images. You simply take one bead per pixel.
Since then, I start crafting a few months before Christmas, usually in early October. This gives me more than enough time to pick out the different sprites, buy new colors if I’m missing any, and of course create the images.
It’s a hobby that not only helps me calm down after a hard day, but also brings joy to others. By the time this article was published here, the next batch of gifts had already been delivered.
What’s the best way to start?
If you want to try the fuse beads yourself, it’s best to start small. The process itself is not difficult. Basically, the fuse beads are a different version of paint by numbers, anyone can do it. Ironing bead pictures can be really expensive with many colors, which is why I initially limited myself.
It started with smaller sprites like Kirby, Pikachu or the mushrooms from Mario, which are no bigger than a plate. When I found that I really enjoyed it, I bought more colors and records. So think beforehand how much you want to deal with it.
The beads themselves and the plates are available at most hobby stores and in heaps on Amazon. Hama is the most common brand that offers everything you need for crafting with fuse beads.
You can easily find the templates with a Google search. Sites like Pinterest and Tumblr have large collections of images that you can recreate yourself. If in doubt, you can exchange the search term “Iron Beads” for the English equivalent “Perler Beads” to broaden the search.
Once you’ve decided on an image, let’s get started:
And that’s the whole magic. I’ve made countless sprites and larger images over the years. In my circle of friends, the 2D job icons from FFXIV are particularly popular, but it will certainly be something different for you.