crafty weekend how-to

3 girls + 2 hours + 1.5 pounds clear glass gems + old catalogues** + scissors + hot glue + magnet tape =


138 mini-magnet gifts for friends, family and...

a couple of sets to keep...

Shoes (very girly of course!) and Paris (ooh la la!)

You'll need:

* a bunch of dome-topped, flat-bottom, clear glass gems from the craft store (the kind you put in fake flower vases. I bought a 3 pound bag from Michaels for $6.99)

* a roll of 1/2" wide adhesive magnetic tape (also at Michaels - looks like a skinny roll of masking tape. I bought the jumbo roll for $5.99 and now I have enough of this stuff to make a bazillion magnets, so maybe you don't need the jumbo size - LOL!)

* a low temp hot glue gun and scissors

* several pages with cute, tiny images from magazines or catalogues

We just cut small circles of cute images from the catalogues, put a blob of hot glue on the flat bottom of the gem, and pressed the gem back onto the image. I found that applying even, firm pressure caused the glue to spread to the edges, resulting in less image distortion from the front. (But hey, they're magnets, just jump in there and do it!) You may have to trim some of the catalogue paper from the back after gluing - it tended to hang over a bit sometimes because each gem is a little different sized. Then cut off a small square of adhesive magnetic tape, and stick it to the back of the gem. Repeat 99 times for 20 gift sets of 5 magnets each :)

We made a couple of practice ones at the start to see how much glue was needed. Another helpful tip is that some of the gems seemed to have an iridescent coating on the back, making it more difficult to see the image, so we tossed those aside and didn't use them.

Let me know if you make any of these, and send me a photo! And if you come up with other catalogues/magazines with great images, pass that info to me as well :)

A big THANK YOU to Heather at {House} of A La Mode for this great idea!

**catalogues used: Pottery Barn Teen, Vera Bradley, and Hancock's of Paducah