Pink Lemonade Love: DIY Perler Bead Bunting

It really is amazing how many things you can create with Perler beads. They just scream to be made into cute little decorations to place all over your house, don't you think? Recently, after a spree of making little fridge magnets, I decided to go for more of a statement piece.

Bunting.
Like any Perler creation, this craft is super easy. It just needs a little more patience since you're making several of the same shape for one project.

You Will Need

A hexagonal pegboard
Ironing paper
Tweezers
Iron
45 white beads, per flag
91 beads of your colour choosing, per flag
String or other hanging material
Scissors
Tacks or nails
Hot glue
Parchment paper

The first thing I like to do is set the white outline of the bunting.

Start by putting a white bead at the center of your pegboard.

Choose two adjacent corners on the outside edges, and put white beads on them, too.

Using all of your white beads, create straight lines between each point, forming a triangle.

For the inside, you can do whatever you like: plain; patterned; avant garde; whatever your heart desires! I recommend using the tweezers, though, or you may end up knocking over your white beads.

For my bunting, I alternated between stripes and polka dots for each flag.

These are ones I already ironed out. Don't worry; we'll get there soon!

When your beads are all placed, you're ready to iron. Please note that you can only make one flag at a time per hexagonal pegboard. This is because no matter what, each other flag you would make would need the center peg - which you're already using.

Flip it over, reposition your ironing paper, and iron again. Hopefully your iron's heating is more consistent than mine.

Repeat this process until you have a nice little stack of flags - however many you like. I'm using seven for mine, working roughly through the rainbow.

Fun idea: Want diagonal stripes? Just rotate the flag!

All right, now you can unplug your iron, get up, and take a little breather - because we're going to find out how much string we need to hang these flags!

I knew when I made the bunting that this is where I wanted to hang it.

Dog calendar optional, but preferred.

Now, you don't have to measure out your string, but I tend to err on the side of "cutting too little" rather than "cutting too much", and I'd rather prevent that if I can. :p

My wall is about 40" wide. I want to leave some space on the sides - about 6" on each - leaving the width at 28".

However, I don't want my bunting to lay in a straight line on the wall - I want it to curve pleasantly, like a smiley face. Initially, I used the diameter and radius of the imaginary circle to calculate the circumference, cut in half for just the lower half... but I quickly realized that that gives way too steep of a curve for my liking.

So instead, I held my measuring tape against the wall and maneuvered it until I found a curve I like - which ended up being about 32". If you want long ties at the ends, add a couple more inches.

As you heat up your glue gun, lay out your parchment paper and spread the flags evenly across it. Cut your string.

This was before I realized that the string should be on the top, not the bottom.

Spread one line of glue over the top white border of your first flag. Quickly position the string over the glue, then hold the ends taut and pull down. This lets you push the string into the glue without burning your fingers.

Repeat this for each flag. Try to preserve the spacing you so carefully set up earlier.

Once all your strings are glued, go ahead and unplug your hot glue gun; we're done with it today. Then, tie the ends of your strings to tacks or nails. (You can do this after the tacks are in the wall if you like.)