How to Make Photo Magnets

If I showed you a picture of our fridge right now, your reaction would probably go one of two ways.  Number one: “There’s so much stuff on there.  Why would you want the doors of your fridge so messy?”  OR number two: “Look at all the pictures and memories you have on your fridge.  How sweet.”  Hopefully your reaction would tend toward number two.  Given that we have a lot on our fridge (everything from Christmas cards to a picture of our sponsored child), we need a lot of magnets to keep those things on the fridge.  These photo magnets were a perfect solution.

Materials

• Glass gems (can be found at the Dollar Tree)
• Pictures
• Mod Podge
• Paintbrush or foam brush
• Magnets
• Hot glue or E6000

How to Make Photo Magnets

First, choose which pictures you want to use.  I chose to print my photos in a circle so I knew they were approximately the right size, but you could also decrease the size of your photo and print your pictures normally.  If you’d like to print in a circle, follow the instructions below.

Measure your gems to find out what size to make your pictures.

I used Microsoft Publisher, but the same effect could be achieved with other word processors or PicMonkey.

Use the shapes tool and draw a circle a little bit bigger than the diameter of your gems.  Copy and paste the circle until you have enough circles.

Click on the shape you’d like to fill.  In the Drawing Tools bar, select Shape Fill and choose Picture.  Select your picture and it will fill the circle.  Because your picture wasn’t originally a circle, your picture may turn out a little distorted.  To fix this, drag the circle until the picture is not longer distorted.  You’ll end up with an oval shape.  Make sure that the subject of your picture will fit within a circle.

Print your pictures.  You can use photo paper if you want, but we didn’t have any, so I used cardstock.  (You could also use standard printer paper.)

Place the gem on top of your picture and trace it.  Make sure you assign individual gems to pictures.  If you use one gem to trace all of the pictures, all but one of your pictures will be the wrong size because the gems aren’t a perfect circle.

Cut out your picture.  You’ll want to cut slightly inside of the line you made otherwise you’ll have the outside of the photo hanging over the edge of the gem.

Put a coat of Mod Podge on the flat side of the gem.

Put your picture on the Mod Podged gem, picture side down.  Smooth the picture with your fingers.

Let the gem dry for 30 minutes, then add a coat of Mod Podge on top of the paper.  (You’d probably be fine without it, but it never hurts to seal your project.)

Leave the gems to dry for about an hour.  Add magnets using hot glue or E6000. (Side note: E6000 is ah-may-zing.  It’s basically superglue and it works on a ton of different surfaces.  Huge fan right here.)

Display your photos with photo magnets (it’s like photo-ception!).

For another DIY gem magnet tutorial, check out DIY Glitter Magnets.