Fun with pärlplatta

I will try to make this a (relatively) brief post...I think I may have mentioned a New Year's resolution about including shorter stories.

So what the heck is pärlplatta and why am I talking about it?  Pärlplatta, according to Google Translate, means "pearl plate".  Essentially it's a craft (which was invented in Sweden in the 1960s) that involves placing hollow plastic beads on a pegboard.  Once the design is completed, an iron is used to melt the beads together.

A simple one....pre-ironing

The girls started making these last summer and we have accumulated a LOT of them (sometimes on a daily basis).   Day after day, I would ask them what they did at school, and they would respond "pärlplatta".  And day after day, all I heard was "plahblahblah".  I finally decided to spend a few minutes on Google translate (which is a pretty common occurrence) so that I could figure out what the heck my children were saying.

I decided to write about this Swedish craft phenomenon after my 5 year old decided that she needed to hang up her pärlplatta collection.   She proceeded to take her stash of these colorful creations along with some reusable sticky stuff up to her room.  She emerged proudly after about a half hour.   In her window now exists a full-on pärlplatta display for all the neighbors to see.

Do you think we will make the cover of Better Homes & Gardens?

With some help from wikipedia, I discovered that this activity isn't just for the 8 and under crowd.  Here is a photo of the second largest pärlplatta with over 316,000 beads.

Located in Stockholm- pretty inpressive!

I had never seen these little tube shaped beads in the U.S....although I'm not exactly the "craftiest" person (and have probably missed a few activities along the way).  But I did a little searching and found that they can be purchased in the states....they are known as Perler beads and can be found on Amazon and at a few hobby stores.   Enjoy!