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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Melting pony beads...

I decided to try melting some pony beads after seeing several posts by people who had tried it.
These are the larger size (9 mm) beads on the parchment paper before I put them in the oven. I tried melting them at 350°, but found that it worked better at 400°. I honestly don't know how long I baked them - I just kept checking until they looked right.

Here's what resulted after a short while (15-20 minutes, maybe). After they cool, they easily lift right off the parchment paper.

So what did I do with these?  Here's an example using them as a flower center:
You can see that these make a fairly large embellishment. The beads do come in smaller sizes (5 mm and 7 mm), and my sister purchased some of the smaller ones. Since they come in bags of hundreds--sometimes thousands--of beads, we're going to share so that we each have some of the different sizes to melt and use.

In this photo you can see the dimension they add to a card.  I adhered them with an adhesive called "Gem-Tac" which worked well and held them securely. They really do look like the enamel dots that are so popular right now.

Be aware that baking these beads does elicit some unpleasant fumes--not a lot, but some. You'll want to have your windows open and kitchen fan on when starting this process. If you have a portable toaster oven, you might want to use it to do this outside.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

4 comments:

Patti J said...

What fun these are, Cheryl! I hope to try this sometime. Your card is adorable. You actually had me at the color combo! Beautifully done, dear friend!

Shanna said...

How cute!!!

Anonymous said...

imagination is a wonderful thing. We could all do with a large dose of it. Maybe the world would be a little safer and more peaceful if we all used ours for ideas such as these instead of wasting our leisure time with plotting the defeat of others. pj

Anonymous said...

Imagination is a wonderful thing and some of us have a special talent for using it to develop beauty and pleasure for others. pj