calaveras de azucar : perler sugar skulls for dia de los muertos

This is a little story about how I sometimes start out making one project, and end up making something completely different. It always reminds me of the artist who spent an afternoon with my second grade class (shout out to Ms. Champion, second grade teacher extraordinaire!) teaching us an art project. I kid you not; to this day, whenever I make a mistake in a project, I think about that guest artist's advice to turn "happy accidents" into even better art. It's rarely led me astray.

I pinned this awhile back because it seemed like a really nice, fast way to use up some Perler beads I picked up along the way. 

Alas, it didn't work out for me. The beads started to smell pretty early into the process, and I had severe second thought about having my kiddo in the house with me while plastic fumes were filling the air. After half an hour in the oven at the suggested temperature, all I had were some hot beads and nasty air quality, so I nixed the plan. Now, possibly, because the site isn't from the U.S., the temperature mentioned is a celsius temperature instead of a farenheit temperature, but I didn't really feel like risking it. I think melting beads in the oven is just not a good fit for our family. 

Then, when I was trying to pull together a project for the YHL/BP Pinterest Challenge, I was browsing my boards and found this lovely pin of some calaveras de azucar flower pots. And just in time for Dia de los Muertos! I'd actually pinned it close to three months ago thinking I'd find time to make some before the holiday, but I started working part time again, and a lot of projects have been put on the back burner.

As it happens, I was making some Perler bead robot magnets for the kiddo the other night. One of them started to look a little like a Day of the Dead sugar skull, so I abandoned my robot project three robots in, and instead made a fun little trio of sugar skulls. My once-upon-a-project turned into something completely different.

I used this large peg board from Ikea (where they cost $2 for a set instead of $6 for two), but the pattern is small enough that you could make a skull on one of the smaller Perler boards they include with the bead sets.

And here's the pattern you can use to make your own! As you saw in the above photos, I made three different color variations. All you need to do is replace the white beads with turquoise beads, etc. and you can make any color combination you want. Iron the beads onto your board according to package instructions.

Ours are going to be refrigerator magnets, but you can use your calaveras de azucar for ornaments, window hangers, coasters, etc. 

You can also use this pattern for crochet, cross stitch, etc. Just don't sell, it, mmmkay?

 Thanks for stopping in and reading, and thank you to Sherry, Katie, Carmel and Sarah for hosting this season's Pinterest Challenge!

p.s. you can make these pictures larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that!