May's See it, Pin it, Do it - a sorry tale of failure!!

It's the end of the month so just time to join in with Fiona's See it, Pin it, Do it

And sadly a big failure for me - I have had six attempts at it and still can't get the lovely results that so many people on Pinterest are getting.  It has certainly kept Mr P amused over the last two weeks and has confirmed to him just how bonkers crafty people are.

So what am I waffling on about???  Well I wanted to make my own enamel dots by melting beads - every pin and blog that I have looked at made it look so easy, so even I could do it - couldn't I???????

ATTEMPT 1 - failure, but might have been because I used non-branded perler beads and as I didn't have any parchment paper I used greaseproof paper instead.  They totally stuck to the paper and didn't melt down any further than this.

I then read on a couple of blogs that it was the branded Hama beads that worked best, so Hama beads were ordered and I got some parchment paper.

ATTEMPT 2 -

Right so now I am using proper Hama beads and the correct paper - what temperature to do them at???  Well every pin and blog seems to differ on this with temperatures ranging from 150 to 220 C.  I figured hot might be best so I plumped for 200 C.

 

This took about 35 mins and I managed to get a small handful to melt properly.

Still not as perfect as the lovely ones I had seen online but better than the majority which looked like this -

 Hey ho back to the drawing board.

ATTEMPT 3 - maybe 200C was too hot, so I turned the oven down to 170C, I also read on UKScrappers that you should lay them on their side, not stand them upright - ok, lets try a few of them like that (I can tell you that everytime I picked up the tray the little blighters that were laying on their sides rolled everywhere - never mind it is giving Mr P a good laugh to hear me swearing at beads in the kitchen!!!!!)

Errr so this how they turned out after 40 minutes - the ones on their sides just become an oblong blob!!

But I had put some of the unbranded ones in (I only have those in black, grey and white) and they were not too bad (still not as good as the ones being blogged/pinned everywhere)

 

 Hopefully you are still with me - I'm not a quitter you know!!

ATTEMPT 4 -  next bright idea - what about if the beads are smaller and I try to melt them really fast???  So I cut a load in half and did them for 30 minutes at 220C

Nope that isn't working either!!!!!!!

Now I am really beginning to get a bit cross with it all but I am still determined to make my own enamel dots!!!

ATTEMPT 5 - I wonder if it is the oven????  I have been using the top oven, but maybe the bottom oven would be better.  OK lets try again and with the oven at 200C as the best results so far seem to be with a hotter oven.

Very mixed results - the unbranded ones at the front have melted a lot slower than the Hama beads, so I am going to have one last attempt at cracking this!!!

ATTEMPT 6 - right this time I am going for a hotter oven (220C) with just the unbranded ones as they do seem to need more heat.

And again another big fat fail!!!!!  The white ones started scorching and none of them lost the dimple in the middle and they stuck to the parchment paper too!!

So I'm throwing the towel in for now and going to stick to what I do best with ovens and that is baking cakes!!!!!!!!  If anyone has done this successfully can you please let me know your secret!!