Dia De Los Muertos – Perler Bead Template

With Halloween upon us and all of the excitement of costumes and parties, I’m excited to take a moment to be a part of the third annual Dia De Los Muertos tour!  Tuesday, the 1st of November is the Day of the Dead and a day where we honor those who have passed.  I took the Kitty Sugar Skull stencil I made two years ago (read all about that here), the embroidery version I made last year (read about it here), and reworked it once again to a project that would pique my girl’s current interests.

Bean is officially obsessed with perler bead templates and I’m all for it.  The way I see it, whether it’s one that is printed and placed underneath a plastic pin board or one that is placed to the side used as a sort of map to say which bead to place where, it’s basically a step away from cross stitch and embroidery and a great skill to develop.

So I pixelated the original template and used circles the size just right to fit under a perler bead board to make a perler bead template for the kitty skull.  The final skull will turn out to be relatively larger at around 17″X14″, but I was looking for an epic project that Bean and I could work on together so it seemed perfect to me.  We do a lot of puzzles together to wind down after school and this is great teamwork project to tackle.

The PDF template has the pieces sectioned out and instructions to trim and overlap the shaded areas to create the full kitty skull.

Now we have a relatively large pin board, but even it doesn’t fit the complete template, but never fear.  You can work sections at a time, press the individual sections according to the instructions to melt the beads.  Then at the end you can assemble the seams of the pieces together and press those edges to melt the beads along the edges and meld the sections together.

Working in sections is actually kind of nice because it would be tragic to complete the entire thing and then accidentally knock the pin board over or shake it and have all the hard work lost.  And when working with a five year old that’s always a possibility hehe.  Once the sections are pressed they can be set aside without worrying about them again until the end!

Here’s the one section that’s been completed and pressed.  You can download the free template here, which includes a sized down template on the last page which could be used for traditional counted cross stitch or even a regular beading project.  We just love this kitty so much and I’m excited to have yet another way to use her and ultimately honor the passing of our Luna kitty two years ago.  Bean and I will be working on the kitty this weekend and will hopefully have her complete by Dia De Los Muertos.  You can follow along as I’m sure I’ll be posting our progress on Instagram.  And follow the rest of the tour participants below:

It is time for the 3rd Dia de los Muertos tour at Rebel & Malice. This is a time that the Latinx community reflects and celebrates the dead.