The short answer: Perler beads are tiny plastic tubes that fuse together when pressed with a hot iron. You arrange them on a pegboard to make pixel-style art, cover them with ironing paper, and melt them into a solid piece. They come in more than 100 colors and work with Perler, Hama, and Artkal brands interchangeably.
Perler beads (the brand name for what are also called fuse beads or melty beads) are the craft material behind thousands of keychains, coasters, portraits, and wall art pieces. Each bead is a short plastic cylinder about 5 mm long, with a hole through the middle. When you heat them, the plastic softens and the beads weld together at the points where they touch, while the holes stay open, which gives finished pieces their classic grid look.
How do they work?
You start with a pattern or your own design, place the beads one by one on a pegboard with a set of tweezers, lay ironing paper over the top, and press with a warm iron for a few seconds. The beads fuse into a single sheet. Flip it and iron the other side for a stronger finish, then let it cool under something flat and heavy so it stays straight. We walk through every step in our how to iron perler beads guide.
What can you make with them?
Almost anything you can draw as a pixel grid. Small projects like keychains and fridge magnets take minutes; large portraits and wall murals take hours but look amazing. If you need ideas, our free pattern library has printable charts with exact bead counts, and our easy patterns for beginners post lists projects you can finish in one sitting. You can also turn any photo into a pattern with our free bead pattern generator.
Are Perler and Hama beads the same?
They are compatible but not identical. Perler and Hama both make 5 mm beads that fit the same pegboards, so you can mix them in one project, and the colors differ slightly between brands. We break down the differences in our Perler vs Hama comparison.