Perler bead projects

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Projects > Perler beads > Chair

Perler beads - six-sided die (cube, dice, d6, 3D)

Here's a project where you can make a small three-dimensional chair out of Perler beads (or Hama beads). Five pieces snap together with a little coaxing; no glue is required.

Be sure to fuse the beads together as lightly as possible, but still enough that they all fuse securely to their neighbors. If you flatten the beads too much, it will be difficult to snap the edges together and there will be gaps that detract from the appearance of the finished project.

You will need:
128 Perler beads in whatever color you'd like your chair to be
a square pegboard (a 6" one will let you make all five pieces at once; with a 3" one, you'll need to fuse a few pieces at a time)
standard Perler gear – ironing paper, an iron, bead tweezers or a toothpick to help place the beads

If you're not familiar with how to fuse Perler beads, please read these instructions on the manufacturer's site.

At left is the pattern for the five faces. The back and front are shown as seen from in front of the assembled chair (that is, with the back of the chair furthest from the viewer), and the bottom edge of the seat is the front edge of the assembled chair. The left and right are shown as seen from the front of the chair.

You can make all five pieces at once on a large pegboard; if you only have the small pegboard, you'll need to make several batches.

Make sure you have the seat and back in the positions shown in the pattern, then insert the tabs on the back edge of the seat into the holes on the back of the chair. (Look at the photo at the top of the page to see how the pieces fit.)

With the back of the chair facing away from you, snap the left side so that it connects to both the seat and back pieces. Then snap on the front, and finally the right side.

It will take some coaxing to get the pieces to snap together. It may help to push on the flat side of a bead with the eraser end of a pencil to help force it into the gap.

The completed chair can be used to display action figures or figurines which are approximately 4 inches (10cm) tall.

It is possible to modify this design to make the chair taller. Increasing the height of the back simply requires adding additional rows of beads to the top of the back piece; no other design changes are needed. To add length to the legs, extend the bottoms of both legs on all pieces except the seat, making sure to follow the patterns of teeth.

It is also possible to play with the colors a bit. By using a second color for the 4x4 square on the seat (while leaving the teeth around it the original color) and using that color on the top part of the back of the chair, you can create a sort of upholstered or padded appearance.

If you enjoy working in three dimensions with Perler beads, you may also enjoy my page on how to create cubes of various sizes. The chair design is based on a modified 6x6x6 cube.

You can create and snap pieces together in other ways, too. With a lot of planning and practice, you can make anything you can imagine.

Hope you've enjoyed this project!