Monday, May 16, 2016

Making Magnets for Party - Wedding - Shower - Birthday - Inspirational Favors

Once again, my internet is doing the "not work because it rained" thing. For a seven minute video about making these cute magnets, It was about 280 minutes. It has been well over an hour and my internet keeps stopping and then it will pick up again and lucky me, I am now at 205 minutes when 30 minutes ago I was at 217 minutes. 
 
So, it isn't going well. Hopefully, some miracle will happen and it will upload because at this point in time, I am thinking it will be like the videos I tried to upload a few weeks back where I went to bed and in the morning, still no upload. Really, other than moving, I don't see anything changing soon. 

So, off that sad subject and onto this adorable and cute fridge or metal board magnet. I was waiting for a prescription at Walmart the other day, Princess Four and I were wandering about and ended up in the "clearance" isle. 

We weren't looking for anything in particular but had just been at an expensive home decor shop where I had returned an item to allow her to pick out something she loved. We looked at the magnets section and of course, I ended up purchasing five really cute magnets for a gift and the magnets were anywhere from $2 to $13. There were lots of bird items around the store so "cute" items were on my mind as we searched down the isle. 

We came across these really cute shower curtain hooks that were on sale for $2.50 a box and I thought how cute they would be as magnets calculating how much they would cost for the 12 in the box. I took three of the four boxes and we went to look for some fabric I need to alter a dress for Princess Five to be in a beauty pageant. While looking at fabric, I thought how cute the magnets would be as a "thank you" gift for a wedding or baby shower. I thought I would go back and get the last box of hooks. I sent Princess Four to pick up food and went back to grab the hooks. 



When I got to the isle, there was a lady there who was marking everything down and putting out more discounted items. I remembered her from a month ago when after Easter, I bought a ton of discounted socks. I joked with her about my "full cart of socks" from the month before and asked if she was marking down the hooks I was getting. She said she was and also three of the other items I had in my cart! By going back for the hooks, I saved over $7 in clearance items. 


We got the 12 hooks in each box for $1.50. I bought a grab bag of items at a second hand store a few weeks back and it had a roll of magnets in it and I paid $1.50 for the entire bag of items and the magnets were just an aside from the cute drawer pull handles I purchased the bag for in the first place. So, each magnet will end up costing us about 12 cents! 

To make the magnets, you just twist the hook in the back around to break the seal of the glue and wiggle it out of the hole in the back. This gives you a metal hook and a cute magnet front. Another great thing is, you can use the hooks for other projects. I thought if you used a drill bit that is just a bit smaller than the hook metal, you can drill a start hole and then hammer the hook into a fence or a piece of wood allowing you to use the hooks on a fence to hold lights or a jar with a candle or even for kids coats or dress-ups in their room. I ended up with 48 hooks so I could do some fun things with them. 

 Once you have the hooks out, there is some glue balled up on the back and I tried to scrape it off with a knife but almost cut myself so I pulled out the handy dremel and used a grinding tip to grind off the glue. It did flip all over and created dust so I should have done it outside but opened a window as we have had rain and thunder storms all day. It took about 5 seconds for each back to get the majority of the glue off so it didn't take long at all but if you don't have a dremel, you could just use a sander and it would have come off as well.

I think any grinding tip will work for the dremel so don't worry about it if you have any type of sanding disc as well, that would work also. 

Once the backs are smooth and even, you can glue on your magnet. There are the little power magnets that you can use but they take longer to glue on as the slick metal makes them take longer. They are a bit more expensive than the other magnets and are also a choking hazard. Also, eventually, the slick metal coating wears off of the magnet and then they get a bit dirty but they do hold well and are smaller and a bit stronger in some cases depending on the magnet. 


With the larger magnet, they are cheaper, can hold more of the magnet on, are less of a choking hazard as they are larger and thicker but they make the magnet stand further off the magnet board of fridge. It is what it is and either one works, it is just a matter of choice. Since I got the magnets free, I wasn't worried about it and used those I had handy. 


It was funny that I put one of each on just to see how they would hold and when I put the magnet down with the little button one on it , the magnet slid off with the glue on it and stuck to the stack of other magnets so the back of the magnet has a streak of glue on it where the magnet flew off. It was so funny I got a good laugh. 
 
I also didn't mention on the video that you want to put the magnet close to the middle but off to the side in favor of the top of the magnet so that it will hold the magnet and not slide or if it is near the top and it is a long magnet, sometimes if you bump it, it will flip off. It if is in the middle and you have more weight on one side or the other, the magnet can slide to one direction or the other or hang upside down so make sure you try one out FIRST and make sure you like how it hangs and looks. They try and hang something up with it to make sure it works before gluing them all together and then finding out it is flawed. 

You can see how cute the magnets came out and I wanted to make sure I told you on here as I forgot to mention it on the video that you need to dry the magnets with the magnet side DOWN so that the weight of the decoration puts pressure on the magnet and gets a good glue seal. If the magnet is just sitting on the top, it may not glue as well so I dried them all magnet side down so they would get a better seal on the glue. 

We just used "super glue" to glue them on as I think it works better than glue gun on magnets. It didn't take long to dry using the larger magnets but if you go with the little coated magnets, you will have to wait a bit longer for the glue to dry and seal but eventually, it does. 


I am going to keep my eye out for more of these adorable magnets tops as they are such a cute and easy way to make gifts. I want to go look in the shower curtain isle now but if you pay the $8.88 for the 12, you still can make some cute magnets but they just won't be as inexpensive. 

I love when I find a good deal and am able to make something into something else for cheap. It is a talent I got from my mother. She was amazing that way.           

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