Wednesday, January 30, 2013

diy heart magnets

Along the theme of my new Valentine's day outlook (read about here), I decided I wanted some cute little hearts for the fridge. Not for any reason and not necessarily as Valentine's day decoration, just some cute as heck hearts to go around cutesy messages on the fridge (naturally).

Again, I used Crayola's air dry clay (can I get an endorsement here?!). Except this time, I moulded the hearts so they would be three dimensional instead of flat.


Pinch off a bit of clay and roll it into a ball.


Start by forming it into a fat rounded triangle shape.


Continue pressing and squeezing and rounding until you start to get something resembling a heart. The heart is a tricky shape and it took me a while to get the best shape I could. I found it helped to draw a heart on a piece of scrap paper (about the size that you're working with) and then push and mould the shape on the drawn heart (using it as a guideline). Also make sure the back is nice and flat so you have a solid surface to glue your magnet to.


Once you have your hearts shaped (in various sizes if you like), allow to dry. Since these are a lot thicker than a flat shape would be, I let mine dry for two days before attempting to do anything more with them.

After they've hardened, grab some little magnets (I used magnet tape that I could cut down to size) and a glue gun and simply glue a magnet to the back of each heart.


Once the glue is dry, you can go ahead and paint them any colour you like. I used watercolour paints that I mixed to produce different shades of pink and red. I also found it was a whole lot easier painting them when they were attached to a metal surface. The hearts were a little too small to hold and paint.

Allow to dry again and apply a coat of mod podge to seal them up.

Stick 'em on a magnetic surface and enjoy!

{good to know} I immediately dropped one after putting it on the fridge (that's freezer height to wooden floor) and it didn't break or chip! These guys seem pretty solid!

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