i pity the foo(l).

until today, i didn't really understand the point of perler beads, though it did teach me to iron back in the day. then i saw this work of genius by shayne at trans-craft-inental:

wow. in comparison, i'm pretty sure that in 1988, my whole family received some variant of the following as christmas gifts. it was a banner year for them, i'm sure.

meanwhile, as i was searching for images of perler bead handiwork, i came across the perler bead prodigy simon, who managed to fashion this monkey and accompanying banana at the young age of five:

v impressive. and apparently there is no ceiling to the age appropriateness of perler beads, as evidenced by krysten, who could maybe stand to learn a few things from simon.

now i know what i'm getting my grandma for christmas this year. she'll be the 4'8" tall lady leading the next perler bead movement in south korea. it's gonna be HUGE.