It's nerd craft time!

Over the past couple of weeks I have been making 8 bit video game coasters for my Brother in Law's birthday present.  They consist of Perler beads, cork backing and a lot of patience.  The first one took me two hours, but I have gotten that down to about 45 minutes to an hour now.  It all depends on how complicated the pattern is.

What I started out with was a pattern I made in Excel.  I decided I wanted my coasters to be 20 beads by 20 beads.  This creates about an average sized coaster and consists of a total of 400 beads.  I then looked through google images for what I wanted to recreate.  Once I had the image I would count how many lines I would need vertically and horizontally so that it would fit in my 20X20 square.  Then came the counting.  I would count where each "pixel" should be on my pattern and place it there with the correct colour.  I would work with vertical lines, so it was interesting to see the image slowly coming together.  After the main image was done I added the background.

Once I had my pattern I would set about following it to create the coasters.  I would use a toothpick to scoop up the correct amount of beads and used it to place them on the layout.  This was very effective and I was happy I didn't have to shell out the cash for Perler's own grabbing tools.  After all the beads were placed, I then followed the directions to fuse the beads.  Now, I like the look of the un-fused beads, so I decided that I would only fuse the back and leave the front.  This is contrary to the instructions, but I figured with the added cork support, they shouldn't break apart.

I was unsure at first how I was going to put the cork backing onto the coasters, but I had inadvertently bought a roll that was self adhesive, so that problem fixed itself.  If I hadn't bought the self adhesive kind, I was probably going to try either Mod Podge or Hot glue.  You don't have to put the cork on the back, but since the beads have holes in them it would make them kind of useless as coasters.

I used the coasters themselves to mark out where I needed to cut the cork and I used an exacto knife to do the actual cutting.  The cork was quite thin and it worked out perfectly.

All in all I am pretty happy with the outcome and I know my Brother in Law is going to love them.  They actually turned out so well, (and I also have about 27 other patterns) that I am going to do a set for my Brother for his birthday as well!