This Christmas I made these little Mario/Nintendo figures for Andrew out of Perler Beads.  My kid loves all things Mario-related.  Luigi, Bowser, Mario, Yoshi.  Retro Nintendo and the New stuff.  He loves it all.  Surprisingly there is not very much licensed stuff for All Things Mario.  We found a DS case, some little plastic figurines, he got a T-Shirt with Mario on it.  That was about it.

Anyways, because I enjoy making gifts at Christmas time and because I know how much Andrew loves Mario and because of the scarcity of all things Mario I decided to purchase Pearler Beads and go to town making little Mario related figures.  I also decided at the last minute to use the Pearler Beads to make the letters of his name to hang in his room.  What was I thinking?  That was an exercise in wanting to pull my hair out.  (I do have big plans to take pictures of these little things because they are so beyond adorable...until then you'll just have to imagine them).

Now, I have about 15,000 (okay, maybe 10,000) of these beads left over.  All different colours.  Pink, Red, Maroon, Light Blue, Dark Blue, Light Green, Lighter Green, Clear, Sparkly ones, oranges, browns.  Of course it seems like there's not enough white or blacks one to make exactly what want or for outlining.  They are all sitting in a pot on my china cabinet right now.

I need to figure out what to do with all of them.  I do want to make a few more little figurines for Andrew.  I definitely want to make a Fire Flower, Yoshi, and some coins.  But that will only use about 100 beads.  I'll still have 9,900 to use up.  I could make key chain sprites out of them.  They would be good to make Christmas Tree Decorations with (but Christmas like 11 months away...it's hard to think of Christmas in January).  Maybe fridge magnets?  Maybe window hanging things (you know...those things you hang in windows so birds don't fly into them...what the heck are they called?)?  Maybe coasters?   Maybe something for the kids at church?  Maybe make something to sell at church to fundraise?

The hardest part is finding or making a pattern to follow.  The possibilities are definitely endless with these Pearler Beads.