Geek Craft: Video Game Notepads
Welcome to my weekly column: Geek Craft! Every Tuesday you'll be able to read about anything and everything geeky when it comes to crafts! Today, I have chosen to feature a brand new and original craft that I have created: Notepads created from Perler Beads featuring video game characters. These notepads are very portable and useful - they will fit in your purse or can stay handy at your desk whenever you need a scrap piece of paper to write down some information. Great to write your shopping list on and they show off your love for video games. So far, I have created one with Mario and Luigi and a Legend of Zelda themed notepad, but the possibilities are endless.
I will show you how to create this quick and fun craft with this Legend of Zelda notepad that I have created: one image features Link, and the other image features an Octorok enemy. The materials you will need are: Perler Beads, iron (for melting the beads together), two binder rings, and paper. When fusing your Perler beads together, it is important to leave two spaces where the binder rings will go through (where the arrows point).
Create two square Perler Bead images: one will serve as the front and the other as the back of the notepad. Once you have created the front and the back of the notepad with the Perler Beads, you need to cut up some paper to put in the notepad itself. I used a whole bunch of different coloured paper - 8 pieces of paper to be exact. I cut the paper with a paper cutter to ensure that the paper is similarly sized. After cutting the paper, I ended up with 48 different little pieces of paper to put in the notepad.
Once you have the paper cut into small squares, you need to use a hole punch to punch holes through the paper. You will need to punch two holes into the paper: both at the top, one on the left and the other on the right. Then, you just have to slide a binder ring through the space in the Perler Bead square, through the paper, and through the other Perler Bead square. You should be able to find these 1" binder rings at your local office supplies store. Now, you're finished! You have a great little notepad that is fun and geeky. The great thing about this notepad as well is the fact that you can replace the pieces of paper inside the notepad once you're finished writing on them. You can recycle your scrap pieces of paper inside for years to come.
The Mario Notepad as well as the Zelda notepad are available for purchase at my Etsy shop. You can also view more images of the notepads there for further guidance, if needed.
