What Will 100 Links Look Like?
I do Perler bead art for fun. I sell some pieces, take commissions and the like on Ebay. I was recently on Facebook, I know for shame, when I saw someone asking about Perler bead art. Me being an entrepreneurial minded person I am, I made mention I do Perler bead art and supplied my picture of the 3D Link I do. They were initially asking about a flat piece - looked like a Final Fantasy from the 8-Bit days character.
They replied with wanting something in bulk. So I replied with a pic of this previous commission I had done.
They replied asking for a price on 100 of those, or something similar. I told them $5 each plus shipping. I have not heard back yet if I got the gig or not but if I do, that is going to be a lot of laying beads and ironing in my near future. lol
If I get the gig, I will make them and stand them all up on my kitchen table and take a pic for everyone to see what 100 Links would look like.
How long does it take you to make one of those? I feel like when I was younger I had a kit to do a design using those beads. It looks like a fun hobby!
Complete, laying out, taping and ironing one piece is about 10 to 15 minutes. If I do it in a conveyor belt style - layout several, tape them, set them aside and iron 10 to 15 one after another then I can get it down to a much more manageable time per piece on average.
After the first 10 or so it becomes more streamlined as you are not searching for colors, containers begin to find their home and it is easy to just push through.
There have been kits over the years to help people convert images over to this style. Prior to Android devices and iPhones most used graph paper, though the size is off a bit (four squares to an inch while it is five beads to an inch). It works though. I often do this while at work, during breaks and such - break out color pencils and layout some design ideas.
I enjoy it a lot. The fact that it brings in enough money to buy more supplies and lets me meet new people is icing on the cake.
Your work is awesome man. My kiddo just found her bucket of Perler Beads in my office and wants to make some art with them tomorrow. I am going to show her your work, and maybe she can make us a few bucks on ebay/etsy. LOL. But truthfully, your work is bad ass!
Thank you for the kind words. Please share your work if you would like. I am always interested in seeing what others come up with.
As far as selling on Ebay - take a look at my prices and see what you think. Measure the time it takes to make the pieces and see if you feel doing this is profitable.
The big reason I don't do a lot of flat pieces, at least for Ebay, is there is just so much competition there for flat pieces. People pricing $5 or more plus shipping pieces at $5 with free shipping. They are not even covering their bead costs at that rate.