After a quick Google lesson, I feel that I can now teach you a little about magnets. Because I know you're very curious!
Apparently the details are debated, but the story I like the best regarding the original discovery of magnets is this: A Greek dude named Magnes was herding his sheep in Magnesia. Much as I only herd sheep in Brenna this guy apparently didn't stray too far from home. One day, he was walking around in his fancy iron-nail-heeled sandals and iron-tipped walking staff when he got stuck to a big rock! He called it Magnetite. Either after himself, or his country, or maybe just for the heck of it.
Fast forward 4000 years or so, to the ingenious William Zimmerman in the 1970s. He was standing at his fridge one day, realizing that there was no food since his wife was in Chicago visiting her sister. She had to leave suddenly, and the note she'd left on the counter had gotten coffee spilled on it when he had dropped his Greek history book that morning. As he searched around for a Chinese delivery menu, he wished there was a place to put things like notes and menus where they'd be easily accessible and not likely to be spilled on. Then the light bulb went off - and not the one in the refrigerator! He set out to find a way to use Magnes' ancient discovery to bring convenience and decoration into his kitchen, and successfully filed the first US Patent for a refrigerator magnet.
I might have made that last bit up, but wikipedia does say good ol' Billy Z filed the first patent for the refrigerator magnet, and who am I to disagree with Wikipedia?
Fast forward 40 more years, to my living room, where I am deciding to join the ranks of brides who combine the works of Magnes and Zimmerman to create our own magnets for the viewing pleasure and convenience of our guests.
Aaaand, another 15 minutes from there, fast forward to me refusing to pay a dollar a piece for a stinking little magnetic doo-dad that most people probably won't use anyway.
After a bit of internet leg-work (is that an oxymoron?), I was able to assemble the pieces to make my own magnets for far less than that.
1. The picture. I decided that I really liked this picture that we took of ourselves a couple of days after getting engaged. It is in Seaside, Oregon. This was the best picture of the sunset we got that day. It was rainy!
After choosing this image, I used my favorite go-to photo editing site: Picnik It was around Valentine's Day, so they had some fun heart stuff to play with, and I cropped, and played with colors, and added some words, and came up with this:
Pretty!2. The business cards. I took this image to my favorite go-to site for random junk with my name/address on it: Vista Print. There, I ordered 250 business cards with just the image printed on them. With all their random discounts, they ended up costing $6.48 total. I ordered some other stuff, including a return address stamp for our envelopes, so the shipping was free. Yay!
3. The magnets. Without this, my whole plan may have fallen to pieces. But! My favorite go to site for all around random junk came to the rescue! Oriental Trading Company had these adhesive magnetic sheets. Perfect! They cost $14.98 for twelve 8.5x11" sheets including shipping.
4. The work. Armed with all of my supplies, I set to work.
You may have noticed the black borders on the side of the business cards. Yeah, I miscalculated the size a bit, so I had to cut all of those off first. That was fun. Then I stuck the cards to the magnet sheets. I actually fit 13 cards per sheet, there are just 10 in this shot. Easy peasy!
Then, because I wanted them to be shiny (and because I really like making more work for myself) I shellacked the heck out of them with Mod Podge. 
Drying!
Then I had to cut out all the magnets individually from the magnet sheets. And, to add just one more layer of complicated-ness, I used my corner puncher to punch all the corners. But see how shiny and not cornered-y they are?! I love them. I had 48 of them on my fridge for a few weeks even. Cost breakdown:
Business cards (80ish used) $2.40
Magnet sheets (6 used) $7.50
Mod Podge (with Michael's coupon) $3.59
Corner puncher $4.99
Total: $18.48
Price per magnet: $0.24!
That's more than a 75% savings from what I found for premade ones! Granted, I put many hours into this, but it was a great excuse to watch TV and drink wine, and I had fun!
I know many or even most people won't use them, but even if only a few people have them stuck to their fridges now, I'm happy.
And I think Magnes and Billy Z are happy, too, where ever they are...
3 comments:
Your magnet is TOTALLY on my fridge :)
Mine's on my fridge, too! It's holding up the other half of your STD, in fact!
mines on my fridge :-)
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