What IS that thing?

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Obviously, I’m joking.

Well, kind of.

I don’t often use this common household object for its intended purpose. I don’t often wear clothes that warrant its use. My husband has wisely started buying wrinkle-free shirts, and there you go. This thing might collect dust if not for my children’s latest obsession: Perler beads.

For the last week, they have been spending a lot of time creating all kinds of things with these wonderful little beads. My son’s obsession began when I made a rocket for him with the beads. Since then he has gone on to make several more rockets (and ask me to make more rockets). My daughter has made a ‘muscle man’ and a ‘muscle woman’ (where does she get that?) and a variety of animals.

Every morning this week, one of the first things I hear is, “Mom, can we do perler beads?” I’ve been such a meanie, insisting that we do our school work first. 😉

I think it’s a neat little project. They have to determine how many beads they need of each color and how to arrange them to create the object that they want. My son is a pro at making rockets now. He can tell you how how many rows of a given color before he should switch to a different color to achieve the desired appearance of the rocket. It’s pretty cute, actually. When he moves on to some other object, he will once again have to figure out how best to create that shape. Exercise those little brains. 🙂

Some of the rockets:

My daughter’s creations:
(See the little black figures next to the sideways peace sign… those are the muscle people.)

What do you use your iron for? 😉