A Fun Craft or Gift with Magnets, Pictures, and Glass Pebbles
posted by Amelia on July 30th, 2008I got this idea from an online friend a while ago and I thought I’d share it with you guys. This is a very easy and fun craft to make. It makes a great gift for a friend or grandparent and your kids can be big helpers too!
I found all the supplies at Walmart except for one (noted below).
Here are the supplies you need:
- Clear, glass, flat marbles–usually found in the floral section
- 3/4″ magnet rounds–can be found in the craft section
- Clear Silicone Adhesive–in the hardware section
- 1/2″ hole punch–found at Joanne’s or Michaels
- Small pictures found in magazines, your own pictures, clip art from the computer, letters printed out from your computer etc. (Use you imagination!)
Directions:
- Use the 1/2″ hole punch to punch out pictures of your choosing. If you don’t want to use a whole punch then you can just use scissors. But, the hole punch takes a lot less time and kids like doing that part too.
- Squirt a pea size amount on the back of the marble. Put it on top of the picture and press down until the silicone spreads over the whole image.
- Wait a few minutes for the silicone to dry and then attach the marbles to the magnets using a small amount of silicone. Wait for them to dry and you are finished!
We made some for my niece’s birthday. We picked out a cool font on the computer and spelled her name. We cut out the letters and made the magnets so she would have her own special magnets to hang up her stuff on their refrigerator. I made a black background with hot pink letters and it turned out really cool. I wish I had a picture of it!
The cool thing about the glass pebbles is that they end up magnifying the picture so even though it looks really small when you cut it out, it looks really neat when you are finished.
Buying all the supplies cost me less than $20. The special hole puncher cost almost as much as all the other supplies put together. But, I have enough supplies to make a ton of magnets! This is a simple, fun, inexpensive, and easy craft. I hope you have fun making it to!
- Join the Discussion [2]
- Share the fun: Email + Del.icio.us + Digg + Technorati
Do you ever feel like your house is actually a plastic factory because of all the plastic toys, sippie cups, and utensils you have for your kids? I do. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at all the plastic that has invaded every room in my house. Especially when I read things that remind me that every piece of plastic ever invented is still on the earth and hasn’t decomposed. Or that animals are dying because plastic toys, bags and other products end up in the oceans, rivers, lakes, forests and animals eat them. Or when I read about how there are harmful plastics in plastic forks, cups, plates, spoons that my kids use everyday. I know that I don’t want to contribute to further global damage any more than I have to but it is truly impossible to avoid ALL plastics. Even though I aspire to reduce, reuse, recycle everything, I know that I will not be able to do that. My kids see things that interest them and 90% of the time they are made of plastic. I could simply institute a rule where we only buy used toys (nothing wrong with that) or wooden toys. Again, an unlikely solution. If I knew what I know now when I first started having kids, I would have stuck closer to cloth and wooden toys. I have already replaced or discarded several plastic eating items–they are much easier to replace.
I have begun to think more about the toys I get for my kids and to be a little more choosy when purchasing something new. I can’t control what grandparents get for the kids but I have encouraged them to think a little more green when it comes to toy buying.
A few weeks ago, The Mom Crowd was given some products from “
Darah and I attended a 
The first week of Kindermusik was difficult because Connor didn’t want to attend to anything we were doing and I was split between both children. If I think hard about it though, none of the children were perfectly attending to the class, so I think I probably was more stressed out about it than necessary. Since that first week, the kids have grown so much in their music exploration. Darah really never had much of a problem attending to the group songs and activities like Connor did, but she still has learned how to follow the direction of the teacher, move fast-and-slow, start-and-stop her instrument or movement, transition between songs and activities. Connor, though has grown up so much during our class. The first session, he threw major temper tantrums when it was time to transition. When we would put up the maracas, he would cry and run away with his maracas. When the teacher started singing her “drums away” song, he would grip his drum even harder while crying. I left thinking he just wasn’t mature enough for a group activity like Kindermusik. By week two, he got a little better about it, and even though I would have to pry each instrument away from him when it was time to transition, the crying didn’t turn into all out temper tantrums. By week three, though, he would start putting his instrument up when the teacher started singing the transition song. There were still tears, but he was following direction. Last week, he actually seemed to look forward to the transition to see what was coming next. He eyed the hoola hoops the whole time and every time the transition song would start, he’d clean up and run over to the hoola hoops, hoping this was the transition that was going to lead to them. There were still some tears, but he was in no way uncontrollable, and I loved that he was following direction so well.
