Catholic Saints in Melty Beads

In my youth, I was fascinated by the lives of the saints.  

My sisters and I used to beg our mother to read about the saints every night.  

More often than not we begged to hear about Maria Goretti because she was our favorite.  

It’s a bit of a gruesome story–attempted rape and murder–for a young girl to hear, but she was young and simple and through all of this, she was real to me in a way that many of the other saints, pictured in dark robes and writing on scrolls, were not.

No longer a girl, I still love Maria Goretti and ask for her intercession.

But I have come to love other saints as well.  Joan of Arc is my patron, and I am constantly looking to her to help me be brave.  

I can not deny the way St. Therese’s simple love has reordered my heart and I long to be as pure and as close to Our Lady as St. Bernadette.

I love the saints.

I love continuing to learn about them. And I want very much for my children to grow up learning about and loving the saints–and seeing them as REAL.  

As you likely know, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time transforming many (113) of our beloved saints into cross stitch patterns and I use the patterns myself to make loads of gifts and projects.  

I love these patterns–so I decided to use them to make toys for my kids…with Melty Beads.

Because we love Melty Beads.

Here is our beloved St. Dominic in Melty Beads!

The greatest part of making these saints in Perler beads is that they are instantly action figures.  

As soon as they cooled enough my kids started play-acting with the saints, and I just love that.  The saints are the real superheroes, after all!

I should note that this was not my idea.  

After I sent those Saint Cross Stitch Patterns out into the world last fall several more seasoned mothers bought the patterns with the sole intent to use them as Perler Bead patterns (this had never occurred to me before).  

Cross stitch patterns work great for Perler bead patterns since they are both just pixel art.  

For a child, you might want to print the pattern. And then color it in the pattern to match the thread key.  

Then they can count and follow the colors to make their own Perler bead saint.  

Or, you can use the Perler bead patterns of St. Dominic and St. Bernadette, pictured below.

For your Perler bead saint project, you can either use the image above or download and print THIS PDF of the pattern.  

Either way, make sure you print in color. I’m not going to bore you with a how-to for Perler beads. Because, seriously, if you are reading this you can figure it out.  

If you are a total rookie to the art, however, here are a few links to the supplies you might want to pick up: Pegboard, Perler Beads.  

And use the junky iron from college you have down in a box in the basement…not the iron your husband uses to iron his nice work shirts…ask me how I know…

We had a lot of fun making our saints in Perler beads…

Even though I regularly find Perler beads in all corners of the house.  

And now, when I read about the saints to my own children, just as my mom did when I was a girl, we have fun little action figures to act things out.

Thanks for being here,

Nancy

Annnddd–guess what?  

I’m working on getting all of these saint patterns (for cross stitch and Perler beads) into an ACTUAL PRINTED BOOK, ready in time for Christmas giving.  

I have a draft copy in my hands right now and I’m so excited!  No more printing and searching for the files on your computer…I can’t wait to share it with you!