Thursday, December 13, 2007

Quickie Crafts

These don't take to long to make, and we are down for the count, Christmas is almost here! Here's a couple of tutorials for some simple and quick crafts.

Charms turned into fridge magnets:



Remember the thumbtacks I made? Well I couldn't find small cork boards to use them with so I made my own. This is a 6x6 inch square.



Here's how simple the charm magnets are to make. For the cork board tutorial scroll farther down.

I bought 3/4 inch magnets at Michaels. This is a 50 pack.



Here's two packages of charms:



Flip them over and peel the sticky off the back:



Use a scraper or what have you to get the second peel off:



Glue one 3/4 inch button magnet onto the back using a hot glue gun.



Done :)


And now for the cork boards, and they are magnets too. They came with stickies to mount them to a wall but I wanted them on a fridge or school locker and NOT permanent so I came up with this idea.

One tile is just a bit too thin for thumbtacks so you'll need two squares to make one cork board.



Because I was using 3/4 inch magnets I took a 3/4 inch drill bit and oh so gently made a 3/4 inch hole in each corner of ONE tile. I used an old cutting board to drill into. Stop when you just break through and you then can break off the inside with your fingers what small amount is left. If you drill right through you risk breaking the corner.


The drill makes a nice even hole. I'm sure you can use an exacto knife if you don't have a drill.


Make sure your magnet fits.


First glue the two tiles together without the magnets in place, ensuring all around the edges are glued. Then glue the magnet in place.



The magnet should sit flush.



There you have it; a cork board that you can tack notes to which is a magnet that sticks to your fridge!

The magnets come in 50 packs and I have a lot left, so I found two pins that I no longer have the backs to. I bent off the pins, hammered flat what little was still left, and glued a magnet onto each of them. I have no idea where the Winnipeg Jets pin came from but, heck, it holds papers on my fridge now :)



My Dad was Deputy Chief of the Lillooet Volunteer Fire Department for over 20 years so I have a few of these pins around :)



I hope you all can use this information to whip up some last minute "quickie" gifts! I've got to get back to sewing now :) My Google reader has now reached over 200 blogs not read and I just can't keep up, so please forgive me for not leaving comments at this time. Hopefully things will settle down after Christmas!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kansas.....
Great projects. It is so nice to find these nifty little ideas especially at this time of the year, these would make great stocking stuffers. They could also be used as Christmas tags on gifts as an added little item of interest.

Love Ya!

Jackie said...

Thanks for the great ideas! We are down to crunch time, aren't we.

Vickie said...

Hey Kansas, These are wonderful! Where did you get the charms at? It's a bit late for me to start something now but I will be doing some soon getting a huge head start on next year. I had to go find your thumbtacks and they are awesome! I've got DSL now and it doesn't take long at all to pull your page up so I will be checking in often. Oh and the pictures of the ice and snow are beautiful and if you knit those cows sweaters you had better send in some pictures. lol

KansasA said...

Hi Vickie...
I bought the charms at Michaels.
Great that you are now on DSL, oh how I wish I could get it!!

Anonymous said...

Those are some great projects. I used to crafts a lot when my kids were young. I have 3 teens and a preteen, I home school, and I have found I am spending a lot of time in my vehicle. I hope to get back to crafting and scrapbooking in a few years when they have started driving and some have left the nest.