What do you do on a rainy afternoon?

It's the eighth day of October today and the number of days when we have had some uninterrupted sunshine for at least an hour so far are three. The last two days my son didn't have to go to school because the district collector declared them holidays due to the heavy rain. Since he couldn't go outside to play and was bored with TV, I had to find something to do...

I finally broke out my Perler beads collection. For those unfamiliar with the name - it's a bead craft for kids (ahem, ahem!) with teeny tiny cylindrical plastic beads that you arrange on pegboards of different shapes to create pictures or objects. My explanation not enough? Check this out - Perler Beads .

My Perler beads have a history - they have been in my craft stash - untouched - for a whopping 6 years now! I hope none of you will mind my taking the title "queen of procrastination"! And I didn't just buy one tub of beads - no sirree! I have two tubs of them and a whole set of a dozen or so different-sized pegboards, a pair of cute sharp-nosed tweezers to pick up the beads and two project books. All this had been stuffed into a suitcase that had been left at my mother-in-law's place while we did our globe-trotting thing.

So my son and I sat down, took a look at the project ideas, chose a pegboard and tweezer each and poured a handful of beads into a steel plate and started off. He chose a smiley face design while I went in for a bigger circular design.

I really marveled at my son's color recognition, because whenever I picked up a sky-blue bead, he'd tell me it was a turquoise one. When he did that for the dozenth time, I gave my glasses a good wipe and turned on the light! Things were much better from then onward. Well, when all was said and done two hours later (with several interruptions from my toddler who tried to get into all the fun), this is what I had after ironing both sides...

I hope you can make out what it is supposed to represent! Now it hangs on our "emergency" curtain rod between our living room and open-plan kitchen. I've decided that I like the craft and it's a wonderful way to spend a rainy afternoon. Note: "Emergency" curtain rod is what my husband insisted on installing for the safety of unwary visitors - to prevent them from fainting away after seeing my kitchen.

What did my son do? Well, he was so particular about finding the exact shade of green for the outer circle of his smiley face that he got bored with having to pick them and refused to "make do" with similar colored ones. So after completing two circles, he dumped them back into the plate and went to watch Ben Ten! Hmm... do I sense a budding perfectionist there??? On the other hand, I was pleased that an active almost 6-year-old boy could sit still for that much!

How do you enjoy your rainy afternoons? Do tell me by clicking on the comments link below and posting your valuable thoughts and ideas.