Wenchkin's mini magnet tutorial

Good morning everyone, since I briefly talked about making magnets over on plus and there seemed to be a good amount of people who were interested in doing this as a project themselves. I thought since I do not write so well I would give you a photo walk through of how I make these. 

Now, I cut up and make my own pieces because I have access to saws. It you do not have access to a saw that does not put you totally out of this project. Many people buy blank scrabble pieces  and add their images to those. Really any small lightweight thing would work. I have also bought magnet sets from the dollar store, painted them white so the old image would not show through then added my images to the top. I am never the tutorial person who is going to say do exactly what I do, I am the one that will tell you to go out there, play and experiment as it is the best way for you to find out what works for you. 

So I begin with a piece of wood and my scroll saw. 

I mark out inch wide strips then cut them down.

I then cut the strips into 1x1.25 pieces. You can make yours whatever size you like, I like this.  

I always end up with a pile of dusty pieces so I usually lay them between two barely damp paper towels 

and just give them a quick clean off. I do this so the saw dust does not muck up the glue later

Then before hand I usually open photoshop and make a sheet of prints, I save them all at 1.1.5 inches at 300 dpi and print them out on high then cut them apart. 

I use glue sticks, nothing fancy as it is not needed.

I flip the mini print over then on top of another piece of paper I run the glue stick all over it making sure I hit all the edges well 

I then stick it to the wood piece and mash the corners down good

and I make sure I smooth all the way across the piece just in case there are bubbles of glue under it

  

When I am done applying all the images I then use regular old acrylic craft paint to paint the edges to match the image. On occasion I print all my  images in sepia then I do not paint the edges at all but instead try to match my image shades to that of the wood I am using. 

After the edges are completely dry I then seal them.

Once again, after completely dry I then take a box of these Business Card Magnets cut them up and apply them to the backs of the wood pieces. These come with adhesive already so you need no extra glue as the adhesive works really well, so well you need to make sure you stick it where you want it as it is going to be hard to pull it back off. 

and that is it, done. Now you can go and stick magnets on all the metal things. I tend to use them to magnet bomb my hood which to me is a less destructive way of leaving art out in public without direct tagging. I never find the ones I leave there again so people are obviously finding them, liking them and taking them home with them.