Gifts Kids Can Make with Perler Beads

December 6, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Earlier this year I shared some Perler bead projects for kids that includes a couple of fun projects for Christmas, but I also wanted to share some melty bead projects kids can make as gifts.

If you’re like us you have tons of Perler beads (but if you need more here’s a good set) and can always use new ways to use them, so these Perler bead gift ideas are great for kids to make to give of for you to use around the house.

I love the classic melted bead bowl project, which you can see in this list of ideas from Kids Activities Blog. You can use all your leftovers from other projects to make super colorful bowls. There are lots of other great ideas in that list, too, so be sure to check it out.

A different take on the Perler bead bowl is this one from Left Brain Craft Brain, which uses a flat base and layers of rings fused together to make the sides of the bowl. This one uses glue to hold the rings together instead of melting.

Melt beads into discs and you can use them in a DIY mini kaleidoscope project, which would be great to give to another kid or as a stocking stuffer. Check out the instructions for this one at Babble Dabble Do.

Perler bead coasters are super easy to make, and if you have peg boards of different shapes you can make these square, circular or even star-shaped. The designs from Crafty Whatnot would be great for older kids to make, but younger kids can do stripes, color blocking or just place beads at random.

Make tiny designs with melty beads, then add them to a basic melt and pour soap base to make fun soap to give as gifts. I Can Teach My Child mostly used holiday themed designs in the soaps, but you can use whatever designs you like to make washing hands more fun.

Perler Bead Projects for Kids

Perler Bead Snowflake Patterns

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Make Unpoppable Bubbles You Can Play with Inside

If it’s hot where you live, you might be looking for some fun activities you can do with kids inside the house. And while bubbles are generally a strictly outside the house kid of activity, these special bubbles are ones you can play with inside. It’s both a lot of fun and a science lesson.

These bubbles aren’t blown into the air, you blow them onto a tabletop gently through a straw.

What’s really cool about them is that they will stay on the table top without popping. You can even blow another bubble inside the first bubble, or stack bubbles on top of each other.

Why does this work? It’s thanks to a special ingredient in the bubble solution: sugar.

This particular recipe is from Play Party Game, but I’m sure you can find it other places with similar ingredients as well. But this post has a good explanation for what is normally happening with regular bubble solution made mostly with just soap and water, as well as why the sugar helps to make bubbles stronger and helps them last longer.

You could make this into a full on science experiment for your kids, comparing regular bubbles (this time you’ll want to do it outside or somewhere easy to clean) to the “unbreakable” bubbles, letting them hypothesize about what ingredients might help make bubbles stronger or what the sugar does to the solution.

You can talk about the molecular structure of the bubble being altered by the sugar, which makes it stronger and longer lasting.

They even have an activity kit you can buy to help guide your explorations and that offers extension activities for you to try.

Or you could just play with them. No judgement here; it’s summertime.

Grab the recipe and more of the science behind the bubbles from Play Party Game. And while you’re playing with bubbles you can also check out my giant bubble solution recipe over at Our Daily Craft.

[Photo: Play Party Game]

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