In addition to our boozy gift baskets, we made cute marble magnets for nearly everyone on our gift list this holiday season. In fact, these were so easy and fun to create, we couldn’t stop making them. We packaged them in little cellophane bags and tied them right into the bows on our packages. Now that we’re past the holidays, these would make great little hostess or birthday gifts… dressed up in an Altoid tin, perhaps? Here’s a pile of our magnets before they went into their gift bags:
Supplies: You can find the supplies to make 50 magnets at your local craft store for less than $10. You’ll need glass floral beads and basic magnets (I chose 3/4 inch for the size of my magnets/beads, but other sizes are available), Glass & Bead glue, and a circle punch (the punch is completely optional – if you’re more precise and less lazy than I am when it comes to cutting out tiny circles, skip it!)
Step 1: Cut out a circle of the image you want in your magnet. We used our wedding logos, initials, designs, photos, you name it. The circle punch makes this step a breeze. I printed my images onto cardstock so they’d be stiffer against the glue, but anything will work – even pages torn out of magazines.
Step 2: Put a small dot of glue onto the magnet and spread with a paper clip or toothpick.
Step 3: Place your paper circle onto the magnet and press. You’ll notice that I sized our logos smaller than the magnet; that’s because I wanted to see all the text even with the marble’s magnification. With more graphic images, I sized them right at 3/4 inch.
Step 4: Apply a second layer of glue to the magnet and spread, just as you did in Step 2.
Step 5: Place the glass bead on top of the glue and move it around until you’re happy with the placement (you’ll have about 30 seconds to do this before the glue starts dying). When you like the way it looks, apply pressure to the entire magnet for a few seconds to help it stick together.
Step 6: Voila! Affix to your fridge and ooh and ahh at its DIY cuteness!
Twitter: @magmaeA
For anyone currently in awe of how incredibly easy these are to make, AND in need of wedding favor ideas… worth a thought! A selection of three per person could be adorable! (I actually made a themed set for my sister-in-law in yellow and grey, her wedding colors.)
Twitter: @sociallifepaper
Thanks for the tutorial! I’m desperately in need of magnets, and you just might have convinced me that making them yourself is actually quite easy. I don’t consider myself particularly crafty, but I think I can handle this!
Twitter: @#!/JediRach
Looks fun and easy.
.-= Rachel’s most recent blog post: "Faith is a passionate intuition" -William Wordsworth =-.
Oh I love simple little gift ideas that are easily personalized–my next gift project for sure!
[...] that we made ourselves. Here’s a great link to how to make these fairly inexpensive magnets: http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/living/2010/01/19/easy-diy-marble-magnets/. Tip #1: buy a 3/4″ circle punch cutter or you will hate yourself after about 5 picture [...]
I love, love, love this! I followed your directions and made picture magnet’s to put in our son’s goodie bags for his 3rd birthday. I linked the directions back to you of course :) Thanks again for the DYI project that I will use again and again and again and again!
[...] few about how to make the magnets. I originally started by following directions found here on the EAD Living blog. The directions are fantastic. You can find the glass marbles (or some call them aquarium [...]