New Hobby

Ever since we've been married, Ryan and I have been never really had a hobby that we enjoyed doing together. For me it was scrapbooking and card making. Ryan bit his tongue when I spent money on supplies, and he even made me a website for selling my cards. He was so supportive. For Ryan it was trying out yoga or wasting hours on the computer, playing video games. I put up with the early yoga mornings and wasted gaming weekends. Recently it's been indulging each other's desire to get into a TV show that the other may or may not be particularly interested in (*cough, cough*, BUFFY!...which, we finally finished and have moved on to X-files, just FYI). But, I'm proud to report that we did it! We found a hobby to share. I don't really know who's more excited to get started.

Some back-story. A while ago, we were wandering IKEA's kid section when I stumbled upon an old craft project that I remember doing in preschool. It's officially referred to as "perler" beading, but basically, you put a whole bunch of colorful, tube-like beads onto a pegboard in whatever design or shape, then iron over them to melt them together. Bringing back childhood memories for anyone?? I asked Ryan if he had ever done that as a kid, to which his response was a sarcastic negatory. Well, as is tradition with Ryan, months later he comes to me with this brilliant idea to get into nerd perler beading. What?! I proposed this idea months ago, you shot me down, and now that it's your idea, it's cool? Uh huh, I see how it is...

Suffice it to say, although annoyed, I was glad that he was so gung-ho about it. He found a website that had a ton of nerdy perler bead designs, and contacted the guy that makes them. They've since become best buds, sharing coupons and tips to having an excessive supply of beads. Today I got our first order of beads, and I must say, I wasn't totally prepared for how many we got. In preparation for the beads, I ordered two hardware storage drawer sets and a label maker (the label maker was originally $40, but I got it for $10, thanks to Freebies-2-deals). Anyway, I got the first package in the mailbox. It wasn't too big, so I started putting each 1000 count pack into its drawer and made it a label. I thought I was done...

Imagine my surprise when I got a knock several hours later, and standing at the door was the UPS man, holding a GIANT box. When I opened it, it was stuffed full of packages of beads. Thousands and thousands of beads! I'm going to be dreaming of beads, I swear. I got them all into their slots, but, sadly, ran out of labels. Yeah, that's how many stinkin' beads we have. My goal is to turn one of our pictures into perler bead creations. Basically I just have to pixelate a picture and recreate it with beads. Then I'm going to frame it for our nerd cave (for now the office, but one day our awesome nerd cave will exist!). Ryan's got tons of video game ideas he wants to do. If this works, we plan on selling them. I'll handle the personalized, girly stuff, and Ryan will handle the nerdy stuff. Sounds good to me, as long as we're doing it together! 

These are what we're aiming to make. I love the Pinterest one!

Ryan's nerdy ones....

This was only ONE order. 1000 beads per package

I asked Ryan to let me handle the organizing. I picked out the storage and I got to decide what order they were put in. Secretly, I was SUPER excited to organize them. :P

I know it looks like we have a bunch of the same or almost-the-same colors, but the slight differences in tone make such cool shading designs.

A lot less scary when they're put away...but we still have a huge box of extra packages in the office.