The girls are in love with their new bowls. I kind of am too. Don’t they just look like pieces of art. They are so easy to do to.
All you need are a bowl, cooking spray and Perler Beads 11,000 Count-Multi-Mix
(affiliate link added for your convenience).
Spray a layer of cooking spray in the bowl. Take the pearler beads and drop them in the bowl. Once you have a few handfuls in there, start to push them down so they form one layer. As you push them down, the beads will begin to climb up the bowl. Add more if you want a larger bowl. Just make sure they’re in one layer.
Once the Perler beads are pushed down, bake them on 375. I baked them for 12-14 minutes. However, I’m not sure how consistent that would be, so I’d keep a watchful eye on the bowl. The plastic begins to melt and the beads adhere together. I thought it might smell really bad, but it wasn’t bad at all. I had the small whiff of plastic as I opened the oven.
[field name = iframe]
Abby decided she wanted her bowl to hold sun glasses. Great choice. We needed a place for these. I just thought the results were beautiful. I originally saw this idea on Pinterest, but when I clicked on the link it couldn’t find the page. So, I had to wing it. Turned out great.
About how many beads were in that bowl? How many bowls do you think you could get out of the large container? I’m thinking of X-mas gifts and wanna know how many of those large containers to buy…
Ooo – That’s really hard to estimate. I can tell you that I have done four projects with perler beads. The bowls (2 of them), bracelets – https://meaningfulmama.com/2012/12/day-347-plastic-perler-bead-bracelets.html (3 of them), salt dough ornaments – https://meaningfulmama.com/2014/01/salt-dough-perler-bead-valentine-ornaments.html and placemats -https://meaningfulmama.com/2012/08/day-227-perler-bead-placemats.html (2 of them). I had a container with 11,00 pieces. I have just over half of the container left. I would estimate that one container would at least make 10 bowls. That’s an estimate though. I hope that helps a bit.
THis is SO helpful, thank you! I love the links you shared. What great ideas!
Glad it helped. Thank you so much!
OMG!!! How adorable is this–I cannot wait to make this with the little ones!
Thank you for such a wonderful idea!
You’ll have a lot of fun with it. I’m glad you found this project. Thanks for checking in. 🙂
What temp do you cook the oven to?
Bake them at 375 for 12-14 minutes. I start keeping my eye on it at 10 minutes. It’s fun to watch anyway. I hope you enjoy it!
You forgot to spray the inside of the cookie cutters with Cooking oil spray.
I think you must be thinking of another post. I didn’t use cookie cutters for this one, but you are right that if you were doing cookie cutters you should spray them.
Great idea!
I like blog, thanks!
Thanks so much! Glad you like the idea.
Would these be safe to serve food in?
They are not leak proof or food grade. I am not super paranoid about it, so I probably would serve something that wasn’t liquid. I guess it probably just depends on your own personal conviction. You could always put a piece of parchment paper or a napkin in it if you are concerned. Have fun with it.
These were so easy to make and turned out really cute!! Kids will give to relatives and friends for Christmas!! Thanks for the info!
I’m so glad you had fun with it. Thanks for reporting back! 🙂 Hope you had a Merry Christmas!
I know this is such an old post but I am going to try it for the first time. I have read most of the experiences and feel confident that it will work out. The button lady never did comment back? THAT would have been interesting?
I DO want to try something else. I want to use TWO bowls? I want to spray the bottom bowl lightly, fill with beads then spray bottom of nd bowl (same size) and place it on top of the beads to flatten. I want to see if it will allow to add more beads and to flatten the inside? See how that will turn out?
Let me know about your experiment with it. Sounds like a good idea to me. I’d love to know how it turned out.
Perler beads are the only ones that are designed to be melted. Pony beads should never be melted!!!
Interesting – I’ve seen it done before and made into sun catchers. If you are concerned about the odor, one trick is to do them outdoor in a fas grill. I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard it works. It keeps all the fumes outside.
I just made a large bowl with my 3 and 5 year old grandchildren. It was great fun, easy to make and it turned out lovely. I used a large pyrex bowl. I bought a container of 22,000 beads and I used less that 1/3 of them – less than the 11,000 the directions called for. I used veg cooking spray. I was worried that the beads would be hard to remove since my bowl had straight sides unlike the more curved sides that you show, but everything came out without a problem. It’s hard to find things for the really young where they can say they did the work, so this was much appreciated. Thanks so much.
I love that you are spending this time with your grandkids and looking for fun ways to engage with them in creative ways. Thank you for that. Thanks so much for sharing your success story too. What a blessing to hear about how my content is being used and enjoyed by others. 🙂 I hope you find more here to do with them. This might be a fun one for Valentine’s Day: https://meaningfulmama.com/marbled-valentine-heart-with-shaving-cream.html
What about chemicals released from the melted beads and oven contamination?
I hear your concern. Some have opted to do it in an outdoor BBQ because of these very concerns. Hope that helps.