Check out how to make these simple Perler Bead ear savers. They really work and help relieve the pain caused by wearing masks behind your ears all day.
At the beginning of the year, I never would have guessed that wearing a face mask to the store was going to be a necessity. Like most of us, I’ve accepted face coverings in public. I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely gotten used to wearing them.
Now, If you want information about the CDC guidelines for wearing masks, please go directly to their website HERE.
My gut feeling is that face masks are not going away any time soon. And, from what I’ve heard, after wearing a mask for hours they start hurting your ears. Yikes!
So when I saw that people were making ear savers from Perler Beads, I just had to make some myself. After all, it won’t be long until I’ll be returning to work and the kids will be back at school. We might all be wearing face coverings all day long.
Many people in the Perler Bead Facebook group that I’m in have been making ear savers with one pattern or another. Now, I’m going to share what I learned with you.
Supplies Needed for Perler Bead Ear Savers
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- Perler Beads
- Large Perler Bead pegboard
- Iron
- Ironing Paper
- Medium shaped round object (see more about this below)
- Flexible ice pack (optional)
I’m not going to go into the details of how to make Perler Beads projects, so if you’ve never worked with Perler Beads, you may want to check out my Ultimate Beginners Guide.
Perler Bead Ear Saver Patterns
I’ve made three different Perler Bead ear savers to share with you today. The patterns are highly adaptable to suit your very own head size because we know no one has the same shaped head. AND you can of course get creative with the colors. Make it your own.
The first two Perler Bead ear savers I’m going to share with you are perfect for people who have glasses. This ear saver rests at the nape of the neck so your face mask elastic is pulled down. This simple adjustment to wearing it on the neck helps to keep your glasses from getting foggy. Brilliant, right?
That being said, you don’t HAVE to have glasses to wear them. They are the easiest of the patterns to make, so you may want to try making one of these two s-shaped patterns first.
The second pattern is pretty flexible because it has three different arrows so you can attach the elastic to whichever one is the most comfortable on your head. Pretty smart, right? Of course, once you know which arrow you need you can always adjust the pattern to include only that arrow.
I had fun making this one, so that’s why I made 3 of them with different patterns. Plus, by doing multiple you can get an idea of different designs you can do with the coloring of your Perler Bead ear savers.
Ironing Your Perler Bead Ears Savers
You may have noticed from my pictures that my ear savers have a slight curve to them. That’s so they can fit to your head better. It’s pretty easy to do, but you need to know it’s not a job for kids.
To do it, you will need a decently sized rounded object. Think the size of a head. I used a coffee can, but you could also use a pot, a large juice bottle, a bucket…just something cylindrical and head sized-ish. If you don’t have a cylinder, use a basketball or a soccer ball.
First, you are going to want to melt one side of your pattern with a close to full melt. If you don’t know, a full melt is when you can no longer see the holes in the Perler Beads. I chose to do a full melt on mine so the ear savers would have a strong bond. It’s ok if you don’t get a full melt, just make sure you iron them REALLY well.
Next, you are going to iron the other side. Iron it really well too, but know that it’s almost impossible to get the full melt on both sides because the air holes are gone when you melt the second side.
Putting A Curve In your Ear Savers
While your Perler Beads are still hot, you will need to take your ear savers and put them on top of your round object. Yes, your beads are hot…yes, please use a hot mitt. This does need to be done before they cool off, but you do have a few minutes before they cool down completely. If they do cool off before you get to this step, you can just reheat them with the iron.
Now that your beads are on the round object, you will need to form them to the round object. You’ve got a few choices:
- You can either put pressure on them with your hand (hot mitt on your hand) until they cool. This will take awhile and is not my preferred method.
- You can wrap some twine or yarn around the round object and the ear savers to hold them in place until it cools.
- You can take a gel ice pack and place it on top. It needs to be the flexible kind of ice pack that doesn’t ever get solid. BUT it will put enough pressure on the Perler Beads to bend them, and because it’s cold they will cool off pretty fast. THIS is what I did.
You really don’t need to put a bend in the small “S” shaped ear savers. Since they are so small the curve doesn’t really make a difference, but I did put one in mine.
Voila! Your Perler Bead ear savers are complete. Hope these little gadgets help save your ears from pain when wearing a face mask.
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