How to make a fuse-bead picture

What you need

• Beads and a pegboard of the same kind, such as Hama Midi, whose beads are 5 mm. The board may be white or clear.
• The pattern, printed at the right size.
• Ironing paper and an iron.
• A bowl for each colour if you have them, and tweezers if the beads feel fiddly.

How to do it

1. Lay out the pattern

   If you have a clear pegboard, the pattern can go under it, so that each square sits under a peg. Then it must be printed at 100 %: measure the check line before you start.

   If you have a white pegboard, lay the pattern beside it and follow it row by row.

2. Sort the beads

   The list on the pattern shows each colour with its number, its symbol and how many beads it needs. Put each colour in a bowl of its own, and the right one is quicker to find.

3. Lay the beads

   Put a bead on every peg whose square on the pattern has a colour. Start in a corner and do one row at a time, so you do not lose your place. The symbol in a square tells you its colour, even when the pattern is printed in black and white. Squares with no colour stay empty.

   Every bead needs at least one neighbour, or it will not hold on to the others once they are ironed.

4. An adult irons

   Lay ironing paper on top of the beads. Start at a medium heat, two dots on the iron, with the steam off. Hama's own instructions say cotton beside two dots, but two dots is the wool setting. Try it on a few beads first.

   Iron with light pressure in small circles, and never hold the iron still. Do not touch the board with the iron: it damages the pegs, and a hot board warps. It is done when the colour of the beads suddenly shows clearly through the paper. If the edges do not fuse, try a little hotter; if the holes close up, try cooler.

5. Let it cool flat

   Take the ironing paper off carefully and let the beads cool on the board for a couple of minutes. If needed, iron once more with the paper. Then lift the beads off and put them under a book until they are completely cool, so they stay flat.

Both the pegboard and the ironing paper can be used again.

Different beads, different ironing

Follow the instructions for the beads you have:

• Hama irons the top, and once more if needed.
• Perler recommends ironing both sides.
• Nabbi irons, lifts the beads off the board and irons the same side again. Nabbi's BioBeads and Nabbi's ordinary beads are not ironed together.

The side facing up while you lay the beads is the side the iron flattens, and the back comes out mirrored. If the pattern has a name or letters, they read the right way from the side you laid.

A pattern on several boards

A large pattern is split over several boards, and each board gets a sheet of its own with its number. Make one board at a time, from the sheet with its number.

A pattern of your own

Would you like to make a pattern from a photo of your own? Read a good bead pattern from a photo.