Hellobee Boards

I feel ya! I've been working on my daughter's dohl towers, and my fingers are all burnt!

I know what you mean about the beans not fitting perfectly between the characters. I used baby lima beans and just searched until I found the tiniest ones that would fit. I also cut them in half w/a pair of scissors if I couldn't find any small enough to fit.

I'm using a mini glue gun. Since it's so small, it's easy to handle and pretty neat. I do have some glue strings that are bugging me, but I think I'll go over it with some tweezers at the end to pick them off.

Just remember that they're not going to look as perfect as the ones you see online, but they'll look great on the head table. No one's gonna be looking at them super close so don't stress too much They'll come out great in pictures!

I see a tutorial for it here, dont know if that helps. but she sorted out her beans into sizes
http://lilsprinkles.com/2012/02/how-to-make-a-dol-go-im-tower/

Also, I don't know how to explain it really, but I would put a drop of glue on a bean, then make circle motions until the glue separated completely from the gun. (does that make sense?).

@Clementine: you're welcome! my beans aren't placed perfectly, but who cares, right?! haha. they were on display for a couple of hours, you can't really tell in the photos, plus, I ended up getting rid of the towers since I wasn't planning on using them again and couldn't give them away/sell since they're personalized for my LO.

Off topic, but could someone explain the history/reason for dol towers? I'm intrigued.

@Clementine: def glue on the bean first, then stick onto tower!

I used 3 sizes of white beans. I believe the main one I used is called cannellini. I also used two smaller sizes. The smallest white bean I used was the size of the black beans I used and that worked really well for fitting in tight spaces. For super tight spaces I'd put aside flattened white beans as I was sorting through the small ones to find good fits and I'd kind of break them in half and put them the other way. Hope that makes sense.

I made my own templates and used regular letter sized paper, and my towers were made from oatmeal canisters so they were much smaller than some who use paper towel rolls.

Stringy hot glue... wait until you are done, then use a hair dryer and those strings will disappear!

Here are some shots of mine!!!